A Vent for ADD
by You're-Not-So-Big
Summary: One/Two-Shot Crossovers. You suggest it, I'll write it. CHAP25: The Incredibles
1. Twilight Series

**Twilight**

Half-Full Moon

* * *

"Finally, the food has arrived," Caius said quietly, licking his lips. Aro smiled.

"Yes, when would you say was the last time we've eaten?"

They waited patiently for Demetri to bring the prisoners through the heavy wooden doors of their underground home. Though the Volturi was by no means the largest coven, they were the most powerful and well known in the world. Every single coven had heard of them and knew of their residence in Volturra, Italy.

Just as Caius sighed in anticipation for his next meal, the ancient double doors swung open, revealing Demetri at last. Three terrified young humans stood behind him, pale and wide-eyed, and behind them, several less important members of the Volturi were goading them forward. Aro smiled, licking his lips hungrily.

"You've kept us waiting, Demetri."

Demetri bowed his head in respect. "I'm sorry, signor. I know how you feel about your food, so I picked the best ones I could find." He glanced at the three humans behind him. "They're young and fresh, just the way you wanted them."

Aro, Caius, and Marcus stepped forward off the platform to closer inspect their dinner. Two men, one brunette, one blonde, and a red-headed woman, all of them young and beautiful, just as Demetri said. They looked absolutely delicious.

"Thank you, Demetri," Aro said graciously. "You may have one, if you like. One of the men."

"What the hell?" the blond man yelled in horror as Demetri grabbed his arm. "What the hell are you? Leave us alone! We didn't do anything to you!"

When none of the Volturi answered him, the girl cried, "Just let us go!"

Aro smiled at this, slowly moving closer to her. "You are beautiful. I wonder…. How would you look as a vampire? Absolutely stunning," he answered himself. Tears welled in the girl's eyes.

"Vampires?" she squeaked. With more force, she cried, "My brother will kill you! Let me go! Let _us_ go!"

"Your brother couldn't do a thing to harm us, dear girl," Aro said tiredly, motioning to Caius and Marcus to go ahead with the brunette man. They both knew he liked to play with his food before he ate it, and it could very well take him an hour before he took the first bite, so there was no sense in waiting for him. "No one could, not for centuries—millennia, even."

"You don't know my brother," the girl sneered and moved to hit him. When her hand struck him, she immediately pulled back with a cry of pain. It felt as though she had hit a solid cement statue!

Aro laughed. "You just put your brother in a very bad position," he threatened. "You see, with just a simple touch, I can read every single thought you've ever had. I can see your brother through your memories, and my friend, there," he motioned to Demetri, who was leading the blonde man to the Volturi Guards in order to share him. "Can track him down."

Superhuman abilities weren't anything new to the girl, but the fact that her brother could possibly be brought into the mess she was in made her gasp in horror. Before she had any time to protest, Aro leapt forward and grabbed her by the arm. She flinched and clenched her eyes shut, expecting to be ripped apart or something equally as horrible, but nothing happened. She opened her eyes to find that the Vampire that had her in his grasp had his eyes shut and was breathing slowly.

"Jasmine, am I correct? Or Jazz?" he smirked, opening his eyes to look at her. She didn't reply and he continued. "You have many memories, it will take time for me to sift through them all…."

Jazz ripped her arm away from him, but it was already too late. He knew everything there was to know about her. Including who her brother was.

"Studying abroad," he continued with a "tut, tut" noise. "That is too bad for your family. They'll never know what happened to you. Now, your brother…." Going through all the memories of her brother, he hesitated. The casual expression on his face melted into a strange combination of horror and wonder.

"No! Stop! Don't think about him!" Jazz suddenly shrieked. She struck the vampire with both fists, but to no avail. Nothing she did would stop him.

"Your brother…," Aro breathed. He suddenly lost patience for the girl. Jazz pulled back for another punch just as he backhanded her across the face, faster than she was even able to see. She fell backwards to the ground, out cold.

"Marcus, Caius! Demetri!" he yelled, his voice cutting through the terrified screams of the humans that were still conscious. "Drop the humans at once!"

Everyone immediately obeyed. The Volturi guards were itching with pangs of hunger, but they, too, let the humans go. The room became engulfed by sudden silence, and everyone was facing their leader.

"But, Aro, our guards are hungry. What is so important-"

"Silence!" Aro cut Marcus off with a flick of his hand. Turning back to the rest of the Volturi, he explained, "I have just read this girl's mind. Her brother… is like nothing I've ever seen before. A ghost."

Caius became confused. "Brother, we already _know_ about the existence of ghosts. There are four major races, remember? Vampires, Wolves, Ghosts, and-"

"Of _course_ I remember," Aro interrupted impatiently. "But the boy is different than anything I've ever seen. He's only… _half_ of a ghost, however impossible it seems. Demetri I want you to track him down. I want that girl's brother."

"Of course, signor, but may I ask-"

"Why?" Aro knew all of Demetri's past thoughts, so it was always easy to predict what he was going to say. "He's half human! We need to make sure that the human part of him becomes vampire. Could you imagine what sort of possibilities could arise from being half ghost and half vampire? If we had him in our coven, we would be ten _times_ more powerful than we are now. Bring him back unharmed, for _I_ want to be the one to turn him. Besides, he lives in America, not too far from the Cullens. While you are there, you can check on that girl and make sure she's been turned. Take Jane, she will help you subdue anyone, should any trouble arise."

Demetri bowed his head again in respect for his leader. "Brilliant," he said, stepping closer in order to let Aro touch his arm so that he could project memories of the girls' brother into his mind. "I will find him at once."


	2. Harry Potter Series

**-ADOPTED-**

by Miriam1

* * *

**Does Danny Look Enough Like Harry to Be Able to Mistake the Two?**

Another Harry Potter Cross with a TUE Theme. Yay.

* * *

Background to this one-shot: Danny's family got killed off by Death Eaters as soon as Voldemort gave the okay for his followers to start randomly attacking innocent muggle towns for fun. Danny, being half-ghost, fails to die and Voldemort is alerted and very intrigued by this. Danny escapes the Death Eaters and runs to Vlad. Dumbledore approaches Vlad offers to keep the both of them safe from Voldemort by letting them stay at Hogwarts. Neither have any magical abilites, because seriously, how much clichéness can anyone stand? Since Dumbledore knows that like Danny, Vlad can't be offed by magic, he offers him the DADA job because he's so fed up with having to get a new teacher every year. Which is okay, because Vlad doesn't really need any magical abilities to be able to teach (you know the saying, "those that can't, teach.") And so both Danny and Vlad stay at Hogwarts and _pretend_ to posess magical talent. Danny's in Slytherin, has made friends with Draco and his friends, and even though Vlad makes him take all the muggle courses the school has to offer, Hogwarts still requires him to take the basics: Charms, DADA, and Potions. Oh, and this is also set right after TUE.

--

"Open your textbooks to last night's assignment," Professor Masters' voice echoed off the back wall of the classroom, eerily contrasting with the stark silence of the students. The sound of flipping of pages and restless shifting in chairs soon filled the room as the all students obeyed their teacher. All the students, that is, except for Daniel Fenton, who decided to play the American Rebel as he leaned back in his chair with crossed arms and an angry, yet bored look on his face. Professor Masters glared at the boy before heaving a heavy sigh of tested patience.

"It seems your fellow classmate, Mr. Fenton, doesn't much feel up to in-class work," he said casually, and everyone turned to face the Slytherin troublemakers that all sat in the back corner of the room. At least half the class groaned. Professor Masters and his nephews' relationship was infamous around the school. They could be seen fighting heatedly, almost _violently_, with each other one minute, and chatting quietly and amiably the next, as if they were the only two in all of England in on a big secret. They were said to have once engaged in a fight at the beginning of the year that ended up in textbooks and chairs being thrown across the room at each other. Melissa Spradt, the seven year senior prefect who had witnessed the fight, had described how both of their eyes had lit up a glowing green and terrifying red before they noticed her standing in the doorway. Of course no one believed her. Melissa Spradt was the biggest liar on campus. Almost as loony as Luna Lovegood. But it was still a good story, and the rumor lasted an all-time record of three weeks before eventually petering out.

"Perhaps you all are bored with the lesson. If that's the case, let's move on to something more… hands on."

The entire class gave Danny a cold glare before turning back to face the front in order to hear what "hands on" activity was coming their way. Professor Masters was not known to be a forgiving or particularly merciful teacher. From the back, Danny smirked at a playful punch from Draco.

"I hate in-class reading," Draco whispered to him truthfully. "Whatever your uncle's got for us has to be better than that."

"I'm sure you've all come across Boggarts," Masters' voice cut over Malfoy's as the teacher turned to a thick wooden trunk at the side of the room. "They're hardly even second year material."

"Third year," Hermione's loud whisper to her two guy friends could be heard from the front of the room.

"Third year, whatever." The professor raised an eyebrow in annoyance after turning back to glare at the girl. "You've all studied them, I'm sure, but can anyone tell me what they really look like?"

Hermione raised her hand barely nanoseconds after the question was asked. And she didn't wait to be called on. "No one knows what they look like, sir, because they're shape shifters. They turn into our worst fears."

Professor Masters rolled his eyes. "Thank you, Miss Granger," he sighed sarcastically. He really hated teaching. Why did he ever agree to it? It's not like the ungrateful boy actually deserved his and this school's protection…. "That would have been correct, but, as of this past summer, a new study has come out by some group in the ministry that has to do with magical creatures, that proves that by killing a boggart, you force it to reveal its true form."

"…But, sir, how is that possible? Just because something dies doesn't mean it reverts back to its true form." It was Hermione's turn to be glared at by the class. No one wanted the lecture to be any longer than it had to be.

"Of course it does. After all, you would say that it requires a certain extent of magical ability to change your form, yes? And it is generally well known that when someone dies, their remaining spells die with them. Only when things are drastically weakened do you see their true nature—or more _humanistic_ form. I'm sure if you want to know more, Mr. Fenton can tell you everything you could want to know about that," Professor Masters smirked at his nephew knowingly. Danny narrowed his eyes at the barely implied threat and Hermione remained quiet, intrigued by the new information. No one was particularly bothered when their Professor referenced his nephews' knowledge. Professor Masters and Danny Fenton were always saying things to each other that no one understood, as if there was some big inside joke only the two of them knew about. "Today, you will be the first class to witness a boggart's true form. Gather around the back room. Crabbs, Goyle, bring the trunk to the back, be careful, it's heavy."

The class clustered together in a semi-circle in the empty backroom with Professor Masters and the wooden trunk in the center.

"I'm sure none of you have encountered boggarts for quite some time, so in order to refresh your minds, you're just going to take turns defending yourselves before we move on to harder things. Line up."

Everyone moved in a frenzied rush to be the first one in line, excited that Professor Masters was actually letting them participate in a hands on activity. Danny and Harry hung behind, understandably preferring to stay in the back of the line. Harry, of course, was known to be slightly dangerous around boggarts, tending to make the boggart want to turn into something that was actually terrifying for _everyone_ as opposed to overgrown spiders and snakes, which were really only scary to certain individuals. And as for Danny, everyone knew about his "condition:" his inability to produce any more magic than the weakest wizard the wizarding world has ever seen. The only thing anyone had ever seen him do with his wand was make a pencil fly into the back of Professor Master's head. And it wasn't even in charms class. (Secretly, of course, both Danny and Vlad knew that the real reason it flew was because Danny just happened to have a spare invisible duplicate of himself that threw the pencil at Vlad just as the real Danny raised the wooden stick that Dumbledore had required he keep on him at all times. Pure genius, on Danny's part, using ghost powers to pass for magical ability.)

As soon as the Professor Masters opened the lid of the trunk, he jumped with almost inhumane speed out of the way and the first student in line stepped up to face his worst fear.

"Re-rediculo-" Apparently Neville had never gotten over his worst fear, for Professor Snape appeared in front of the trunk, standing only a few feet away from him and slowly stalking closer and closer to the poor boy. Neville was rooted to the ground, apparently unable to move, and his knuckles were turning white under the strength of the grip he had on his wand.

The whole class gathered around him to see whether he would make it or not. Though he was in the front row behind Neville, Danny wasn't really paying too much attention to the situation. He never paid much attention in any of his classes, these days.

Draco, also bored by Neville's incapacity to do anything right, felt the urge to pull a prank on someone that had been giving him a hard time these past couple of days. Namely, Potter. He spied the scrawny black-haired boy standing behind Neville, and a couple of feet in front of himself. His eyes fell on the cheap looking wand sticking out of the boy's pocket and the corners of his mouth rose to form a small, evil smirk.

Danny, his mind miles away was fully unprepared for what happened. In one quick moment, he felt his wand being slid out of his pocket (not that he would ever have had any need for it anyway) and heard a voice whisper in his ear.

"Too predictable," it said, referring to Neville. "We all know the fat lout's just going to faint any second. Dementors should brighten the classroom quite nicely, eh, Potter?"

And with that, Danny felt himself being pushed forward between Neville and the boggart Snape before he had any time to protest. The image of Professor Snape vanished almost instantly and from all around him, Danny heard the classroom gasp. When he blinked, he thought that the boggart had disappeared. Until he looked down.

Five gravestones stood up from the floor, engraved with the names and death dates of the five people Danny had almost gotten over. But that wasn't all. No, Danny's worst fear was extensively complex. Behind the headstones was a teenaged girl in a red suit clutching a broken thermos and lying asleep on a matching colored board. Or so the class thought, until a trickle of red blood fell from the corner of her mouth. Danny's eyes widened and he froze while the rest of the class stepped a few feet backwards, huddling close together in fear of being near a dead body. Professor Masters was quickly making his way to Danny's side when a deep resounding laughter sounded throughout the room.

Everyone shared a gasp when a second Vlad Masters appeared standing over the body of the girl. The boggart Masters looked exactly like the real one that stood behind Danny except for the fact that instead of wizarding robes, it was wearing an upper class muggle buisiness suit, complete with platinum cuff-links and professionally polished shoes. And that wasn't all it was wearing. On its hands it sported a pair of metal gloves, holding them like a doctor holds his hands when he's wearing sterile gloves. Five needles protruded from each hand, making the gloves become claw-like.

This was particularly odd to everyone, including Vlad. Actually, _especially_ Vlad. The grave markers, understandable. Daniel had made it quite clear that he was more than upset by the death of his family and friends. Dead Valerie… also understandable, to some extent. But why Daniel's worst fear would include himself wearing the Fenton Ghost Gauntlets was way beyond him. Sure, it could be scary to the boy, he supposed, but it really had nothing to do with anything. As if Daniel had chosen his worst fear at random.

But when he looked questioningly at the boy to ask him why this was his worst fear, he noticed the terror in the his expression. This was the most scared he had ever seen him, which was saying quite a lot. He opened his mouth to interrupt this slightly awkward (for him, at least,) if scary moment, but was beat to the punch by his doppelganger.

"You _know_ you want the operation, Daniel," Vlad heard the boggart version of himself say, and he became thoroughly confused. _What operation…?_

"Vlad!" The boy had finally found his voice, though it was nothing more than a pathetic squeak. "No! I can't-! You don't understand!"

"It's what's best for you, my boy," Vlad shuddered at the amount of manipulation he could hear in his own voice. "To make all those painful emotions go away."

There really was no explaining what happened next. Well, not to the class, anyway. Daniel closed his eyes as he yelled, and when he opened them, they were ghostly neon green. "You can't! I won't let you!"

Neither Vlad hesitated. The boggart-Vlad brought back his hands for a swipe at the terrified boy, and the real Vlad pushed Danny out of the way so that he was now the closest to the boggart. Everything that had scared Danny instantly disappeared, and in its place was a second _Danny_, lying face down on the floor.

Fortunately boggarts were stupid, because having a dead body as someone's worst fear didn't always work to scare them when the real person was alive and well in the same room. So of course Vlad knew better than to be scared or upset by the seemingly dead boy in front of him. Instead, he powered up a strong ecto-blast and hit the boggart squarely in the back and it exploded and fizzled out of sight. No one said anything and the silence began to pound on everyone's ears before their panting professor finally decided to break it.

"And that, dear students, is what a dead boggart looks like."


	3. Fight Club

****

**You wake up at Seatac, SFO, LAX. At O'Hare, LG, BWI. Pacific, mountain, central. This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?**

* * *

Fight Club

I Am Jack's Slightly Mythomanic Tendencies:

A Fight Club Rewrite

* * *

People are always asking me if I know Danny Phantom.

"Seven minutes," Phantom tells me as I struggle against the bonds on my wrists that tie me to the chair I'm sitting on. "This is Safe Ground. Would you like to say a few words to mark the occasion?"

"Huh-ooh," I say. With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels. Phantom takes the gun out of my mouth with a smirk.

"What was that?"

I glare at him. "I said, fuck you."

For a second, I completely forget about Phantom's only slightly anti-capitalist plans to completely wipe out the foundations of Amity Park and I wonder how clean that gun is. That old saying, how you always hurt the one you love? Well it almost always works both ways.

I have front row seats to this theater of mass destruction, the demolition's committee of Project Plasmius ready to commence and completely destroy the internal support columns of both the FentonCo and Axion Labs skyscrapers. Along with those of several other, less important buildings.

In six minutes, Phantom will give the signal to Primary Group A in charge of the Fentons, which will then trigger the signal to Secondary Group A, in charge of the enemy. They and the Group Bs will collaborate to reduce several blocks of tall buildings into smoldering rubble.

I know this, because Phantom knows this.

"Five and a half," Phantom says, checking his glowing green watch as he stared out the window. Everything he had worked so hard for was about to finally pull through. "Think of everything we've accomplished."

And suddenly, I realize that all of this: the guns, the attack groups, the revolution… has got something to do with a girl named Samantha Manson.

* * *

The accident in my parent's lab happened over ten years ago. How could it possibly hold any relevance to my life today? That's right. It doesn't. Not in the slightest.

I live alone, in an apartment in Amity Park, not too far from my family. But far enough to solidify the rift that had been growing between myself and my parents since the day of the accident.

I was fourteen, stupid, unaware. A pushover when it came to peer pressure.

"'Go on, it's _your_ parents' portal. See if it works,'" my best friend had said, giving me a small shove in the direction of the large metallic hole my parents had just finished carving into the wall. Tucker was never one for cowardice, but it _was_ my parents' invention and not his, so there I was, looking around the inside of it. The metal was cold to the touch, the perfect conductor for thousands of volts of ectoplasmic electricity. I am lucky enough to be one of the very few alive who completely understand what it feels like having that energy course through your body.

Yes, that's right. Just as I walked inside, I just happened to stumble over my klutzy feet. I dragged my hand over the inside of the portal in order to stop myself from falling face first onto the unforgiving metal floor beneath my converses. And my hand just _happened_ to find the "on" button that my parents were stupid enough to place on the inside of the damned machine.

I was shocked with a hundred times more volts of electricity than any man is supposed to be able to withstand. And let me tell you. If anything was pain, that goddamned blast of electricity was.

"_Aaaaahhhhhhh!_" My scream had echoed throughout the entire city block until I passed out. Back when we still lived in our old house.

That was then. This is now.

Then, my ghost obsessed parents didn't have enough money to buy a separate building in a secure area where no one could be hurt, instead using our basement as a laboratory, allowing my sister and I to run around at a young age and inspect every shiny object within our reach.

Now, Jazz and I have long since moved out. My _still_ ghost obsessed parents became immensely wealthy after they patented the Fenton Logo and the Fenton Portal was successfully (thanks to me) up and running. They then bought themselves a skyscraper in the heart of the city and began to focus less on their family so they could expand upon their empire of Fenton Weapons.

They told me to grow up, get out of the house, go to college, get a job, marry my girlfriend. But I couldn't get married; I'm a twenty-four year old boy.

And, like in all cliché movies about familial relations, we had a fight. I left home, completely severing all ties with them and refusing to accept any money. Occasionally, I still talk with Jazz. But only occasionally.

With no money, I decided to put my incredible math skills to good use. I became an employee to my parents' company's rival, Axion Labs, just to spite them. I traveled to accident sites all around the country to perform product recall cost appraisals.

After the fight with my parents, I began to distance myself from my girlfriend, Valerie, and she eventually broke it off. I lived alone with only enough money to get by in hopes of one day becoming exactly like my company's president, Vlad Masters, 1997's billionaire of the month. A rich bachelor, running for mayor, one of the voices of the city. Like a stray mutt who wants to lead the pack, I had very high aspirations. And I haven't even begun to tell you about my fictional job as an astronaut.

Now let's fast forward. For six months, I couldn't sleep. With insomnia, nothing's real. Everything's far away. Everything's a copy... of a copy...of a copy. When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything; the Fenton Stellarsphere, the Pear Galaxy. Master's Planet Axion.

"Gonna need you out of town a little more this week, we got some red flags to recover." My boss, Kwan, walked up to my desk, handing me a stack of reports to file.

"You want me to deprioritize my current reports until you advise a status upgrade?" I asked him in a monotone voice.

"Make these your primary action items," he commanded. He then threw two plane tickets at me and I caught them before they hit my face. "Here's your flight coupons. Call me from the road if there's any snags."

-

"No. You can't die from insomnia," my doctor told me unfeelingly, arms crossed over his wide chest.

"What about narcolepsy?" I asked him tiredly. "I nod off and wake up in strange places. I have no idea how I got there." I once fell asleep and woke up to find myself in a bar all the way across town. But the doctor didn't care.

"You need to lighten up."

"Please, just give me something." I was begging, now. I needed drugs. I had tried all the non-presctiption, from Benedryl to Nyquil to the ones with obscure names you're not supposed to try because they'll make you sick.

"No," he said forcefully, checking his clipboard one last time before standing up to leave. "You need healthy, natural sleep. Chew some Valerian root and get some exercise." Standard prescription.

"Hey, come on," I called desperately after him. "I'm in pain."

"Pain?" he snorted. "You wanna see pain? Swing by First Methodist on Tuesday nights and see the guys with testicular cancer. That's real pain."

I realized that there was no point in trying. I let him go.

-

Well, I eventually wondered what "real pain" was, so I took the doctor's advice. I had nothing better to do on Tuesday nights, so I went to see the men with testicular cancer. I watched sadly as the men described their lives in painful detail. What their ex-wives were doing now with their new husbands and their complicated, yet virtually non-existent relationship with their kids. I remained silent.

We were eventually forced to pair up. I was unprepared, so I got stuck with the man no one wanted. The largest man in the whole group, Bob.

He grabbed me and told me his life story. From beginning to the end, sobbing the whole time.

And then, it was my turn.

"Go ahead," he told me, pushing me back at arm's distance, looking for my name tag—where I had scribbled the first fake name I could think of—so he could tack my name onto the command. "Cornelius. You can cry."

And I did. If you had asked me then, I couldn't have told you why, but pressed up against his chest as he held me in a bone crushing hug, something in me snapped and tears formed in my eyes. I cried.

That night, the first in many, many nights, I was able to sleep. More soundly than any baby, I was out like a light. I eventually realized that crying—really _feeling_ that emotional pain—was what allowed me to fall asleep.

I became addicted. Support groups like AA, TB, General Cancer—that was what did the trick. Every night after that, I fell asleep, perfectly rested for the next day of work and tears. Every evening I died, and every evening I was born again. Resurrected.

If I didn't say anything, people always assumed the worst. They loved me because they thought I was like them, dying, without hope. Being there, crushed by hugs of sorrow and pity, was my vacation.

And _she_ ruined _everything_.

I was crushed in Bob's arms, sobbing silently, when she came in, her three inch heels clacking noisily against the tile floor of the church.

"This is cancer, right?" she asked. Even though it was nearly ten at night, her sunglasses were on, concealing her eyes and protecting them from the smoke that billowed out of her mouth and cigarette.

This woman, Sam Manson, obviously did _not_ have testicular cancer. She didn't have any disease at all, the big tourist. She was only there for entertainment.

Her lie reflected my lie, and suddenly, I could no longer feel anything at any of the meetings I attended. I couldn't cry, so once again, I couldn't sleep. I kept attending these groups in hopes that maybe she wouldn't show up and I'd start to feel again, but she was always there.

I was going to strangle her. Hit her. I hadn't slept in four days.

Free and Clear, my tuberculosis Friday night, after guided meditation and before the hugs, I grabbed her and dragged her aside.

"We need to talk."

"What?" she gasped.

"I've seen you. You don't have cancer," I growled in her face, pointing a finger at her accusingly. "You don't have have parasites. You don't have anything. You're a tourist."

"So are you," she shrugged, apparently over the initial shock of being called out and already reverting back to her original, careless demeanor.

"I'll expose you." I glared at her, trying to bore holes in her face with my eyes, wordlessly telling her how much I needed this.

"Go ahead," Sam chortled mirthlessly. "I'll expose you."

I ended up forcing her to divide the groups between us and we created alternating schedules. I got TB, she got AA. I got parasites, she got sickle cell. We exchanged numbers in case something was to happen.

That was how I met the woman who both ruined and saved my life.

-

I used my company flight tickets to O'Hare at the end of that week. From O'Hare, I was going to either La Guardia or JFK (I still had yet to read my tickets.) And always, when I reached my destination, I wondered, what would happen if I left my home? Just stayed and never returned? No one would miss me. But always, I returned.

I met many people on my flights. Single serving friends, to match the single serving sugar packets, single serving trays of airplane food, single serving coffee stirrers. I'd talk with them until I fell asleep. For the duration of the flight, we were friends, buddies, keeping each other occupied for lack of anything better to do, only to say goodbye once the flight was over and never meet again.

It was on one of my business flights that I met Danny Phantom.

He was around my age, good looking in terms of what a woman could possibly want in a man. Not that I would know too much about that. He was muscular, tall, and most curiously, not from this world. He was a ghost posing as a human. And, if I forgot to mention it before, ghosts are becoming increasingly accepted. At least where I live, as long as they're not trying to kill people. You know, I've always wondered what it'd be like to be a ghost. To leave behind the tedious responsibility of taking care of yourself.

Phantom wore a dark, skintight shirt, matching black pants, a silver belt, and sunglasses to hide his unnaturally green eyes. "What did you do?" I asked him, bored out of my mind, preparing for another long flight.

"What do you mean?" he asked, turning from the small window to look at me.

"What did you do for a living? When you were alive," I clarified.

He smirked at me. "Why?" he shrugged. "So you can pretend like you're interested?"

I laughed at this even though it wasn't funny and he stared at me with for a few seconds with a stupid smirk on his face.

"You have a kind of sick desperation in your laugh," he told me, bending down to reach his briefcase.

"Hey, we have the same bag," I observed. He smiled, but didn't answer as he brought his bag to his lap.

"Weapons."

"Excuse me?" I asked, not quite understanding where that was coming from.

"Weapons," he repeated. "I tested and sold weapons. I still do."

He opened his bag, which was full of familiar metal weapons and handed me a business card as I wondered how he could have possibly gotten through security.

And that was how I met

"Danny Phantom," I read his name off of the card before flipping it over and stuffing it into my pocket.


	4. Psych

**Psych**

Over the Hill In Less Than Fourteen Years

* * *

**1984**

"Dad! Dad!" Shawn ran through the halls of his house in the middle of the night, desperately trying to reach his father's bedroom. Just as he reached his room, Henry Spencer's door opened, revealing the former police chief standing and blinking groggily in his pajamas.

"Son, do you have any idea what time it is?" Noting his son's scared expression, he decided to change the question. "Shawn, what's wrong?"

"It's him! It's him, he's back!" Shawn rushed after looking down the dark hallway behind him.

"Who?" Henry asked quickly.

"You know!" Shawn yelped. He looked around a second time and leaned in closer to his father before whispering. "The _ghost_."

Henry sighed heavily. "You woke me up for _that_? Shawn, you're old enough to know that there's no such thing."

"No! I'm serious, dad, there is! He's in my closet and he comes out at night."

"You're scared of a ghost in your closet?" his father chuckled.

Shawn blushed. "I'm not scared…. I just don't want him spying on me!"

Henry put his arm around the boy's shoulders and began walking him back to his room. "Shawn, I want you to think about it logically." And so began another police-chief training lecture. "Now, what would a ghost possibly gain from of spying on you?"

Shawn looked at his bare feet as they hit the oak floor of the hallway, one after the other. "I don't know. Just please make him go away."

Mr. Spencer sighed again. "No. I need you to understand. There is no such thing as ghosts. They don't exist. Not in this world, not in your closet. And there's definitely not one trying to spy on you."

"But-"

"Listen to me, Shawn. The only thing you need to worry about is criminals. They're the real villains," Henry continued just as they reached Shawn's bedroom. He gave his son a little pat on the back in the direction of his bed. "Now go back to sleep. I don't want to hear about this again."

He closed his son's door and smiled before returning to his own room.

_**-Presently...-**_

"...So she crept silently up the stairs, being sure to avoid the creaky fourth step, up to the fifth story of the abandoned mansion. When she reached the top, she turned to the left, to the bathroom. And when Scary Shelley opened the bathroom door…." It was around ten at night, and Gus, Jules, McNab, and several officers sat around the Santa Barbara Police Department in Jules' and Lassiter's office giving Shawn their full attention as he quietly told ghost stories.

"Oohga-booga-booga!" Shawn yelled suddenly, laughing, and everyone screamed. The screams dissolved into laughter and everyone began to gather their things, preparing to leave for the night. After she grabbed her briefcase and purse, Juliette walked over to Lassiter's desk, where Shawn sat with his feet dangling over the edge.

"How'd you get so good?" she asked.

"Good at what?" Shawn asked innocently.

"The story thing. That was amazing. I was hooked!" she laughed.

"Oh, that? That was nothing. Actually, Gus, here, taught me that story," he told her as his best friend walked up to him. "I'm just good at telling it."

Just then, Junior Detective O'Hara noticed something. "You know, Lassiter's going to kill you."

"Now why would Lassie want to do a thing like that?" Shawn asked, seemingly genuinely confused. "I thought he was a detective. Respectable, upstanding. A little stiff, maybe, but a murderer?"

"Shawn," Jules said, rolling her eyes. She pointed to the desk he was sitting on and Shawn looked underneath him. He was sitting on unfiled reports and papers Detective Lassiter had left for the next day. They were wrinkled and a little torn, and the suspect pictures were crushed in a pattern that looked suspiciously like Shawn's butt.

"Oh," he said simply. "Don't worry, I'll fix that."

Jules and Gus laughed together as he hopped off the desk and shuffled the police reports together, really only making it worse. Just then, something caught his eye.

Suspect Miranda Streep, a pretty young brunette according to the mug shot on one of the police reports, had been convicted of killing her two children, ages 5 and 8.

Shawn's eyes flicked down to her testimony.

"'…_It wasn't my kids, it was a ghost…,_'" it quoted. "'_I would never kill my chidren…._'"

Witnesses described her as a normal mother, never having shown signs of mental instability before the death of her children. He only got so far when Gus punched him playfully on the shoulder. "Come on, Shawn, it's late. Let's get home."

Shawn dropped the reports and stood up.

"Sure." He turned back to Junior Detective O'Hara. "See you tomorrow, Jules."

-

As they drove back to their apartments in Gus' blueberry Toyota Yaris, Shawn decided to tell him about the new case and the suspect he suspected wasn't guilty.

"I don't understand why you feel the need to keep stealing Lassiter's cases. Why can't you ever just wait for your own?"

"Wait for my own?" Shawn chortled. "You don't understand, Gus. I _need_ this case."

"It's Lassiter's."

"So? Since when does that ever hold any relevance?"

"That's exactly my point, Shawn."

"Come on, I really want it! How often do you see ghost cases? It's like on TV, you know? Get a little Ghost Hunter action. We could be like those guys from Ghost Busters. You can be the girl, if you want. She mostly just sits on the sidelines."

Gus glared, deciding to ignore the jab his best friend had just made at him. "You? Bill Murray? Shawn, that's just stupid. No one believes in ghosts. They're not real, you'd just be dealing with a psycho woman who might or might not have killed her own kids."

"Gus, Gus, Gus. I read the witness testimony. She's not psycho. Everyone but the police said she was completely stable. And you know what they say about the SBPD," Shawn lowered his voice, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. A little more seriously, he continued, "Besides, you don't have to believe in ghosts to take up a ghost case. It'll be fun."

Gus gave up. "Fine, whatever. I don't care. Do whatever you want. Me? I'm going away on a business trip."

"A business trip?" Shawn was genuinely surprised and slightly confused. "I didn't know we had those."

"No, Shawn, my real job. This PSYCH business is not my real job. My boss has given me a prepaid trip to a pharmaceutical class in Florida hosted by the one of the largest companies in the United States."

"Florida? Gus, what's in Florida?" Shawn threw up his hands, angry now. "A bunch of old medicine men in outdated suits who are going to lecture you on the importance of upholding the standards of their tyrant companies?"

"Yes, Shawn, that's _exactly_ what's in Florida." Gus' grip on the steering wheel became bone-crushingly tight as he pulled into Shawn's apartment lot. "That _and_ the chance to meet the companies' boss and president of Axion Labs, one of the richest men in the country. Which is why I'm going. You're on your own for a few days."

"Gus! Why couldn't you have told me before? You can't _leave_ me! Not while I'm in the middle of my new case!"

"It's not your case, Shawn," Gus told him pointedly before motioning for Shawn to get out of his car. "Now good night."


	5. Reaper Series

**Reaper**

Witty Title

* * *

Sam was reaching over the pyramid of Big Bob's Delicious Black Beans in a Can, stretching his arm as far as he could over the ladder to place the very last can on the top. He had put forth a tremendous amount of effort into building the pyramid of cans and was now giving the very last his full concentration. He was almost there…_almost_….

"What's up, man?!"

With a yelp, Sam jumped. The ladder he was standing on wobbled and he fell, taking with him a couple of cans off the corner of the pyramid as Sock and Ben laughed. "_Sock_!" he yelled angrily from the floor. Sock and Ben offered Sam their hands, still snorting with laughter.

"I've always wanted to do something like that."

"Yeah, well, now you've accomplished your life's goal. Happy?" Sam growled, still angry. "It took me two hours to build that. If I had fallen right in the middle of it-"

"Relax," Sock cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Nothing happened. Look, only five cans fell off."

"Okay, whatever," Sam said, still annoyed. "What did you want?"

Ben was immediately on the defensive. "What makes you think we want anything?"

Sam rolled his eyes and Sock sighed.

"Okay, man, you got us," he said, looking at his feet. "Look, we're a little low on cash right now-"

"No."

"But the apartment bill hasn't been paid!"

"_No_." Sam crossed his arms.

"Please man? We'll pay you back. With interest, too," Ben pleaded.

"All we need is a couple hundred in addition to your regular," Sock shrugged. "Not that much. Come on, man."

Sam sighed, giving in. "All right. Whatever. But you better pay me back in full _and_ buy me a couple rounds at the bar tonight."

-

His friends gone, Sam had just finished placing the last can on the pyramid when suddenly, he felt a chill. The chill was so strong, he shuddered convulsively and let out a gasp of air. For some reason, he was able to see his breath. Closing his eyes, he gripped the ladder to steady himself and wait for it to pass. When he opened his eyes he was no longer in the Work Bench, but in a cold, dark indistinguishable building.

"Hey, there," an all-too-familiar voice greeted from the dark. As his eyes adjusted, Sam saw the Devil's fluorescent smile only a few feet away from him. Sam sighed, releasing the tension he was holding.

"Think you could give me a warning next time?"

"Why, I'm sorry, Sam, I didn't mean to scare you."

"Sure, whatever, let's keep this professional, remember? Business only."

"I didn't know it was against the rules to know my employees personally," the Devil said seriously. Sam rolled his eyes when he continued. "In fact, I didn't bring you here for another case. You're here because I have a little surprise for you."

"Surprise?" Sam asked weakly.

"Well, yes. You've become quite reliable. Just a little something to show you how much of an asset you are to me. And besides, it's our anniversary. You started working for me exactly a year ago."

"Wow," Sam replied unenthusiastically. "Great."

"Yes. It is great, isn't it?" the Devil laughed. "Anyways, last time we spoke, you voiced your concerns about your…female friend. You know, not wanting your job to hurt anyone. Well, I thought of the perfect solution." The Devil paused for dramatics. "A partner."

"Oh, jeez." Sam instantly face palmed.

"Yes, well, he'll need to be trained in the Reaper Ways, of course. But I think he's powerful enough to protect your little friends and keep them out of trouble when you're hunting escaped souls."

"A partner? Are you serious?" Sam frowned. "How do you expect me to explain him to everyone? 'Hey, guys, this is some dude who's here to help me catch escaped souls and he's going to be following me around for a while?' Nuh-uh, not happening."

"Sam," the Demon's face became serious, on the verge of becoming angry. "I'm trying to be nice. You haven't even _seen_ the kid yet."

"He's a kid?! What the-" Sam stopped himself before he said anything he'd regret. He lowered his voice before continuing. "Did you _kidnap_ him?"

"Well, if you want me to be perfectly frank, yes. I did. Just for you." The I-Use-Way-Too-Many-Crest-Whitening-Strips smile returned and suddenly, a boy of around fourteen or so appeared beside the Devil.

"Let me go! Let me _go_!" the boy cried, stamping his foot, his eyes closed tightly shut. When he noticed no one was answering, he opened his eyes and looked around at his new surroundings. "Oh…." When his gaze met the Devil's, he cried, "You! I thought I told you I want to go home! If you don't take me back, I'll blast you- I'll, I'll-"

Sam was taken by surprise. Most teenagers he knew would have wet their pants and curled up into a fetal position by now, but the kid in front of him was protesting wildly against his capture. To the face of the Devil.

The Devil smiled for about the hundredth time and grabbed the boy's shoulder. "Shh, calm down, Danny. I want you to meet someone. Your new partner." Danny became silent and looked Sam over. Sam shifted his weight under the inspection, but awkwardly extended a hand. "Hey, uh, my name's Sam."

The Devil laughed. "I'll leave you two to get to know one another. Oh, and have fun with that next case."

With that, both Sam and Danny found themselves in mid-air above a pyramid made out of stacked cans of beans. They fell in its center, bringing the whole thing crashing down.

"Oh, damnit!"

* * *

Yay commercial break

"Multi-taskers. When the Palm Centro was designed, Sprint thought of these people..."

* * *

Later that day, Sock, Ben, Sam, and Danny were sitting at a table in the Work Bench's faculty lounge. Already having made sure they were alone, Sock, Ben, and Sam were whispering quietly about Sam's new situation. Danny, however, remained silent, choosing instead to stare at nothing, eyes completely glazed over and arms crossed tightly over his chest.

"…So you're saying the Devil just kidnapped that kid-"

"Danny," Sam interrupted Ben.

"Danny, whatever," Sock continued for Ben, rolling his eyes. "And _gave_ him to you?" Sam nodded in affirmation, looking over at the boy who was sitting right next to them and listening into their conversations, and yet refused to speak. "Dude, Sam. That's intense. That's seriously, like, child labor, or something."

Ben was the first one to think of the boy's feelings about it.

"So," he said, turning to the boy, willing him to reply to the question he was about to ask. "Where you from, Danny?"

Danny blinked, coming out of his angry stupor. "Not here," he answered rudely. "You have cars. Take me home _now_."

Sock burst out laughing. "Yeah, Sam has a car, but that doesn't mean he has _gas_. You're not going anywhere, buddy. You know what? If the Devil disagrees with Child Labor laws, I do, too. Why not put you to good use? You're our new box boy!"

Danny winced at the mention of boxes. "If you think I'm stupid enough to have to listen to a bunch of high school dropouts, you seriously have another thing coming," he growled. "Forget it."

Sock blinked in shock and his two friends laughed. "Wow, Sock. You just got told by a high schooler."

"…not…dropout…," Sock muttered under his breath. Then, more forcefully, "Danny, you're our new box boy, and you're gonna do exactly what the three of us tell you to. And you're not gonna be able to do a thing about it, either."

Danny gaped. "What, are you threatening me?"

Sock snorted. "Well, if you put it like that…."

The boy immediately stood up, pushing his chair back so fast it almost fell over. "I'm out."

Danny ran out the door of the faculty lounge and between isles six and seven to the front door. But as soon as he got one hundred feet away from his "partner," he felt a tug on his arm. He looked down at his wrists. There was nothing there to physically hold him back, but he was unable to move any further away from Sam. He sighed and turned to face Sam and his two annoying friends as they ran to him. When they caught up to him, Sam looked at him questioningly.

Danny sighed, turning around to walk back to the faculty lounge wiht the trio. "I can't run away from you," he explained. Sam frowned.

"Yeah. The Devil probably fixed that…," he said smugly. "Sorry."

"You're sorry?" Danny cried, throwing his arms into the air as he re-entered the lounge. "You're the one that _wanted_ a freaking partner."

"Hey, no I wasn't!"

"Yes you were! I bet you even went to that weird guy and specifically said, 'Hey, I want Danny as my partner 'cause he's so damn cool.' And then the creep came and kidnapped me."

Sam took the offensive. "I don't even _know_ you! I don't know _why_ he gave me a partner. And I _definitely_ don't know why he thought a fourteen year old could _possibly_ help me catch escaped—oh, uh, hey, Andy! What's up?"

Andy had just walked through the door to the lounge, suspiciously peering around at the room.

"Hey, Sam, I heard yelling. Is everything all right?" she asked.

"Wha-wh- oh, yeah, uh…." Sam stumbled with his words. "We're all fine. All fine in here," he finally said, looking around at his friends. "Yep, everything is just… dandy."

"_Dandy?_" he saw Sock mouth to him from across the table. Andy, however, was satisfied with the answer he gave and turned to face the youngest member of their little group.

"Okay. Who's this?" she asked, motioning to Danny.

"That- he-…." Sam never was good at thinking on his feet.

"Him? Oh, he's uh, Sam's cousin, Danny," Sock saved him from explanations he didn't want to have to reveal. "He's gonna be following Sam around for a while, see what it's like to work at the Work Bench like his older cousin."

Thankfully, Andy appeared to buy it, and she smiled. "Hey, Danny, I'm Andy," she laughed, extending a hand. "These guys aren't the brightest light bulbs in the shed, so if you ever need anything, you can come to me. The Work Bench can be tough. Don't let them work you too hard."

The angry glare Danny had soldered to his face instantly melted into an awkward smile as his face lit up with a furious blush. "Uh, sure." No one could resist Andy. _Damn, she's hot…._

"Okay, anytime, but now my break's over. See you later!" With that, Andy was gone, back to register-shift.

"She's taken," Sock said, the second after she had left the room.

"What?" both Sam and Danny asked in unison.

"You heard me, Danny. Andy's Sam's girl."

"Oh, come on, Sock, that's not true…." Sam had had it with the little hints and innuendos he had been receiving about his relationship with Andy ever since he had kissed her at the party.

"Whatever, dude, just sayin'," Sock laughed. "I saw the look Danny was giving her."

"Danny's too young for her," Ben said in the boy's defense.

Just then, Sam and Danny gasped and shuddered as a chill ran up their spines. "What the hell-?"

Sam was confused, but Danny, however, was on the alert for obvious reasons. He looked around the room suspiciously, but was interrupted when Ben chose that moment to yell, "Hey, look, guys!"

Danny, Sam, and Sock followed Ben's pointed finger to the empty table behind them, where an old looking, overused box lay sitting in the center.

"Great, just what I needed," Sam rolled his eyes. "Let's open it and get this soul over with."

"Soul?" Danny asked. Sam, Sock, and Ben looked at him oddly.

"Escaped souls…from Hell…. We capture them because we're Reapers, remember?" Sam asked, as if to spark Danny's memory. Danny, however, didn't know what he was talking about. "Didn't the Devil tell you any of this?"

Danny simply shrugged and motioned to the box.

"Whatever. Just open it."

The four of them stood up from their seats and walked over to the table with the box. Sam grabbed it and undid the clasp. None of them had any clue what to expect when he opened it, Danny least of all, but when he did, he was the only one out of all of them who was surprised by what the steaming fog had left behind. A silver thermos with the word, "Fenton" on it.


	6. Twilight Series Part Two

**Twilight**

Half-Full Moon Part Two

* * *

"Oh, no." Alice turned to Edward across the room, eyes wide with horror. "Oh, _no_."

In the blink of an eye, Edward was standing next to her, a worried expression on his face. "Alice, what is it?" he asked. "Alice?"

Alice's eyes were glazed over and she was completely unaware of Edward hovering over her. "Alice…." Edward trailed off and began to read her mind. She was having a vision—and it didn't take telepathy to know that. Edward needed to see what in her vision had her worried.

He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have double vision. As soon as he did, pictures formed in his mind and Bella caught his eye. She was running, running as fast as she could, panting heavily, a terrified expression on her face. Edward ached to help her, whished he could, but he was stuck in place, unable to move. Then, the leader of the Volturri appeared, taking the place of Bella as the vision changed perspective. "I want her! I want the both of them! Bring them back _alive_!" Aro bellowed to no one Edward could see.

And suddenly, Bella returned. She stopped running and hid behind a large tree. That was when Edward noticed that she was in the forest. The Black's forest.

"Edward…," Bella whispered to herself, panting so heavily her breathing almost drowned out her voice. "Edward, where are you?"

A twig snapped and her head spun towards the noise, her hair twirling wildly and sweat from her face falling to the ground. "Who's there?" she squeaked.

Silence.

Bella shook with terror and adrenaline.

"I know you're there."

This time, there was an answer. A low moan of agony sounded, causing Bella to gasp and shut her eyes tight.

"P-please," she whispered, squeezing herself with her arms in order to make herself smaller.

"P-please," a voice echoed, even more shakily than Bella's. A young man's voice. That scared Edward. He didn't want _any_ man around Bella.

"Bella, don't turn around," Edward whispered, knowing that she wouldn't be able to hear him. Bella's breathing slowed and her eyes opened.

"_Ple-ea-ase_," the disembodied voice wavered again, clearly pained. Bella's chin jutted out and she looked to the side, trying to see who the voice belonged to without having to turn. She couldn't.

"Bella, don't turn around!" Edward begged.

Bella picked herself up off of the ground and turned around. When she saw what lay on the other side of the tree she had been resting behind, she gasped.

"Edward!"

Edward breathed in sharply as he was brought back to reality, away from Bella, away from whatever lay beyond the tree.

"Edward!" Alice called again, her voice afraid. "Did you see it? Did you see what I saw?"

"…Yes," he replied slowly. "Alice-"

"No, Edward, I know what you're going to say. We can't help her! It hasn't _happened_ yet!"

"So we prevent it!"

"No! Listen to me!" Alice raised her voice so Edward would listen. "This was different. I said it hasn't happened yet, but it _will_ happen—I can feel it. And not in the distant future, Edward, it will happen _now_!"

"How is that possible?" Edward asked hysterically. "She's with Charlie!"

"I don't know! Edward, what-?"

But he didn't hear her. He had already left. Not even taking the time to use the door, he jumped through the window, shards of glass shattering all over the Cullen driveway, and ran as fast as he could, faster than a race car, to the Quilette forest. He would have to risk them being angry with him for trespassing on their territory, but it was worth it. Bella was his life. Bella needed to be saved.

He was there in less than a minute. He stopped, closing his eyes in order to focus on anything he could find. He reached out with his mind, but couldn't find anything. Then he heard her voice.

"Edward, where are you?" It was a faint whisper even _with_ his super-human hearing, a hundredth of the volume it was when he had heard it in Alice's vision. He tried to pinpoint where exactly it came from, but he didn't want to waste any more time than he already had. "I'm coming, Bella."

He ran as fast as he could towards her voice, constantly pushing himself faster. And then he heard her voice again, louder.

"P-please!" her frantic whisper echoed in his ear, begging. Then he heard the other voice.

"P-_please_," it whined pathetically. Edward had to wonder how someone could be here without him sensing his mind. Did he have the same immunity to him that Bella had?

In less than a second, Edward found her. Before she even knew what happened, he had her in his arms, holding her protectively.

"Edward!" she cried, wrapping her arms around him. "How did you-!"

"Shh!" he quieted her. He set her down gently, and stepped past her so that he could finally see what was behind the tree.

Both Edward and Bella gasped at the same time.

A boy, no older than 17, was laying face down, unmoving, in a puddle of red. His hair was matted, his clothes torn and sweaty, and he looked absolutely filthy. Edward hesitantly stepped forward, leaning down to inspect the boy. Upon closer inspection, Edward saw that the boy's muscles were shaking, and the tears in his clothes exposed cuts in his flesh. And, as Edward noticed with heart-stopping horror, cuts weren't the only thing that had torn him apart. There were bite marks on his neck, where blood was quickly escaping his body.

"_Pl_-_please _h-help me," the boy gasped, trying to pick himself up with his arms. His arms failed him, and he fell back into the earth, unmoving.

"Oh my god!" Bella cried, grabbing onto Edward's sleeve. "Edward, what-!"

"Bella, why were you out here?" he asked harshly, as he bent down to scoop up the boy in his arms. Bella cringed.

"I—Jacob left a message on my cell, telling me he was in trouble," she said quietly. "You don't understand, Edward! It sounded like he was _crying_! I _had_ to help him!"

"You could have called me!"

"I wasn't thinking." She lowered her eyes to the ground in embarrassment. "Anyway, I heard a noise when I was running in the forest, and I got scared."

"You were lucky Alice saw you. Get on," he said, motioning to his back with his shoulders. Bella jumped onto his back.

"Hold on."

Almost immediately, they were off. Bella squinted against the oncoming rush of wind in her eyes. Looking down, around Edward's head, she tried to get a better look at the unconscious boy.

He was pale and had messy black hair. He was wearing a dirty white T-shirt with some red symbol in the center that was no longer legible because a long gash ran through it and his blood was everywhere. Bella scrunched her nose. She would never get used to the smell and sight of blood.

She tore her eyes away from his messy clothes and broken body to study his face. He was cute, in a young sort of way. He was nowhere near as hot as Edward, but where Edward lacked that young, naivety most kids lost when they became teenagers, this kid had it all.

Just as soon as Bella had gotten comfortable, they stopped.

"We're home."

Bella slid off Edward's back and followed him as he walked up the Cullen driveway and into the house. As soon as he opened the door, the members of the Cullen family rushed him, too surprised to notice the smell of blood wafting from the boy's body.

"Is Bella all right?"

"Is she okay?"

"Oh my god, Edward!" Alice cried, as their attention was drawn to the boy in Edward's arms. "Who is that?"

"Carlisle," Edward whispered, ignoring all their questions. "Please…."

Carlisle appeared and took the boy out of Edward's hands. He walked to his office and set him down across the couch.

"He's bitten," Edward informed Carlisle. Carlisle nodded, and began to study his new patient.

"Everyone, out," he said quietly and everyone left his office. As soon as they were out, the interrogation resumed.

"Edward, who is that?"

"I don't know. Bella found him," Edward answered tiredly.

"I did?" Bella was shocked. She _ran_ from him, she didn't find him.

"What happened to him?"

"I don't know…."

-

A good half hour later, Carlisle emerged from his office. Everyone sitting at the dining room table looked up to him expectantly.

"He's alive." Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Having a dead person on your hands is never a good thing, vampire or not. "But he's been severely hurt."

"And the bite?" Edward asked, worried. Carlisle tiredly raised a hand to calm him down.

"Taken care of."

"Someone should stay with him through the night. I don't—I don't know if he'll…"

"Survive the night?" Bella finished quietly for him. "I'll stay with him."

"No, Bella, you need to sleep."

"I found him!" she said, protectively.

Edward exhaled heavily, knowing more than anyone how stubborn Bella could be. "Fine. But I'm staying with you."

Bella smiled and pulled out her cell phone to call Charlie.

-

Later that night, Bella found herself on the reclining chair in the spare bedroom, wrapped in Edward's arms. The both of them stared at the sleeping boy on the bed. Carlisle had cleaned him up. He was no longer filthy, but completely washed. His left arm was in a splint and on his right, a row of stitches ran from his shoulder to his elbow. Bella imagined that he must have more stitches on his torso, but Edward's spare shirt covered it. His neck had been bandaged so the bite marks could no longer be seen, and on his face, unprotected cuts too shallow to have anything done to them ran from his left cheek to his jaw. He was pretty beat up and it wasn't a pretty sight. They kept staring in curiosity, willing him to wake up, to keep living.

Bella had almost closed her eyes and drifted into sleep when she heard the scraping of fingernails on sheets. Her eyes snapped open and her vision regained focus on the boy in front of her.

His fingers had twitched and a groan escaped his lips. Bella flung herself out of Edward's arms to the side of his bed. She patted his shoulder soothingly.

"Mom…?" he whispered, his voice hoarse.

"…No," Bella whispered back sadly. Edward appeared next to her.

"Water," he begged, and Bella looked up to Edward in silent communication. Edward nodded and exited the room, heading for the kitchen.

"We're getting you water," Bella smiled encouragingly. His eyelids flickered and slowly opened. Bella almost gasped, his eyes were such a startling color blue. They shone brightly in the moonlight, a beautiful aquamarine color. His brows furrowed together when his vision cleared and he saw Bella standing over him.

"Who-?"

"Here's water," Edward interrupted as he came through the doorway, holding out a glass of cold water. He handed it to Bella and Bella brought it to the boy's lips. He drank half the cup before choking and spilling the rest all over. Bella took the cup away as he coughed and cleared his throat.

"Who was after you? Do you know?"

The boy shook his head and his eyes watered with tears as memories came back to him.

"They have my sister," he shakily told Edward, as his head fell back onto the pillow and he closed his eyes. "My f-family-...They...need-help..."

He didn't say anything more as he drifted out of consciousness. Bella and Edward stayed with him for the rest of the night, just waiting for him to wake.


	7. Maximum Ride Series

**Maximum Ride:**

Flying Without Wings

* * *

Well, here I was. I had followed Voice's coordinates, which, as it turns out, were the coordinates of Nowheresville, capital of Nowhere. I'm serious; I followed my instinctual directions for two days of flying west of Washington D.C. to come to this, a small town that wasn't even big enough for two shopping malls.

My flock landed tiredly beside me, and no one spoke as we looked around at the somewhat disappointing surroundings.

"_So_," Iggy drawled, his voice a little raspy. "Where are we?"

"I really don't—"

"Ohmigod!" I was interrupted by Nudge, of course, who else? "Look!"

We all turned to follow her finger, which happened to be pointing at a fast food restaurant.

"I'm _starved_!"

Cries of agreement sounded out from my flock and I supposed I had no choice but to comply with their wishes for a large, heart-attack inducing dinner. Besides, maybe I could ask around, find out where, exactly, we were.

"_Nasty_ Burger?" Angel asked, and I had to agree with her astonishment in the owners' choice in names. Until I saw the restaurant logo, "It's only one letter away from Tasty Burger!" No, wait, that just increased my horror. But before I could tell the flock that we should probably find a different eating establishment, they were already inside, placing orders. The poor high school dropout taking their orders was surprised to find himself ambushed by six very hungry kids. By the time we were through ordering, he had broken a sweat.

"Are you sure you want that much?" he asked me, the one paying with the debit card my mom had given me.

"What can I say? We're hungry," I told him, handing over the plastic. He took my card and swiped it through the machine and I decided that there was no harm in asking him where we were.

"Hey—" My eyes flickered not-so-subtly to his nametag, and I continued, "—Steve, uh, can you tell me where we are? We just got off the highway and-…." I trailed off, leaving him to assume that we had used a car. And that I was legally old enough to drive.

"Amity Park," a woman's voice said for him and my eyes darted over Steve's shoulder. A pretty, dark girl with wavy brown hair, who couldn't have been much older than me or Fang, appeared from the kitchen with a friendly smile. I looked for her nametag so I could tack on her name to the end of my muttered, "thanks" only to find that she wasn't wearing one.

Steve sighed angrily. "Valerie, I thought I told you to stay in the kitchen. You're not on register shift," he said bossily.

Valerie crossed her arms in frustration. "We've already got five people in the back. And besides, you're not the manager."

"I'm _assistant_ manager," he corrected her huffily, adjusting his nametag before handing me back my card. "Which means I'm in charge of you."

How rude, I thought. Apparently the girl thought so, too, because looking at her watch, she said in a scathing voice, "Oh, look, it's my break. I'll be taking five."

She walked around the counter, growling at him, and he walked away to the kitchen, presumably to yell at the kitchen staff.

"He's two years older than me," she told me while I stood waiting for the food so I could bring it to the table where my flock was waiting patiently. "Some power trip, huh?"

It's not that I have anything against friendly people, it's just that I don't like to talk to them. Wait, scratch that. I don't want to get _attached_ to them. If I do, it's hard to let go, which I know we'll have to do eventually. It's easier if I just don't make friends. But I smiled at her anyway, for appearance's sake.

"Yeah," I said, turning away from her to make it more apparent that I really didn't want to be talked to.

And that would have been that, except she kept talking. "You're not from here, right?"

"Uh, no," I replied, turning back to her.

"Where're you from?" And then she saw my expression. "Sorry if I'm annoying you or anything, I'm just bored. I was expecting my friends to come here during my break, but they're not here."

Mentally, I was thinking, _There might be a reason they're not here, 'cause NEWS FLASH: you're annoying._ But out loud, I told her, "Oh, no. It's okay. We're from…D.C. We just stopped here on the way to…uh, Texas."

"Wow. That's pretty far. And you're traveling with…," she trailed off, looking over my shoulder at my flock. "A lot of little kids."

"Oh, yeah, I know," I rushed nervously, surprised she had caught my mistake. "They're actually a lot older than they look."

"Uh-huh."

There was an awkward pause where she just looked at me skeptically with crossed arms, but then the door opened, interrupting our staring competition.

"Valerie!" a boy, around the same age as me, panted. He had messy black hair that looked like it could have been formed into a cowlick if it wasn't so long. It spilled into his face, effectively covering his small forehead, but stopping over piercing blue eyes. His face was young and fresh and I had to admit, he was pretty cute (I wouldn't have given him the time of the day otherwise,) but his physique practically screamed poster boy for anti-bullying ads. The large welt that was growing on the side of his face didn't help too much, either.

"Oh, my gosh!" the girl, Valerie, cried, running past me to be by his side. "Danny, what happened to your face?"

"Oh, it's not really that bad, is it?" he chuckled nervously, bringing his hand to his face. "I…fell. On my scooter."

"You must have fallen pretty hard, Danny. It's pretty bad," Valerie told him. "Let me get you a Nasty Shake, on the house."

"Sam and Tuck are coming," he told her as she turned back to me. That's when he noticed I was standing right behind her. "Who's that?"

"Oh!" Apparently, Valerie had forgotten all about me. "This is, uh…."

"Max Ride," I said, extending my hand to the boy. Oops. I hadn't meant to give him my full name, it slipped from my mouth when I lost myself in his stunning eyes. Did I mention what a pretty color blue they were? Oh, man. I think I just giggled. No way was this happening to me now!

He chuckled, taking my hand and giving it a firm shake. "Ride? As in Sally Ride?"

"Yeah," I smiled, flashing my probably not-so-white teeth at him. "You're the first one to make that connection."

"I like NASA and stuff like that." He waved a hand, as if it was no big deal.

"Really?" I giggled. What was _wrong_ with me? "I like space too! In fact-"

"Max!" Nudge called from the back booth. "I'm _starving_!"

"Yeah!" I head Iggy's voice. "Where's the food?"

I turned to the counter and saw that it was already there. I hadn't noticed it waiting for me because of—

"I'm Danny by the way," he told me as I made to grab the three trays filled with mounds of greasy food.

"Nice to meet you, Danny." I had two trays in two hands, how was I supposed to carry a third? Oh, well, two trips it was then.

"Want me to get that for you?"

"Oh! You would do that?" I asked him eagerly and he nodded.

"Sure."

Together, we walked to the back booth, where the rest of my flock was eyeing the trays we carried hungrily. As soon as I set the two trays down on the table, five pairs of hands grabbed at them and they were soon empty. Danny set the third on the table, and I glanced at Fang. I inwardly smirked at the pained expression that flickered in his eyes, but instantly felt bad about it. Then I felt bad about feeling bad. Why should I feel bad? _He_ was the one who had spent so much time with that awful Brigid.

"Thank you so much," I told Danny and he nodded.

"Anytime," he said, waving a goodbye as he walked away. "It was nice meeting you."

"You, too," I sighed and couldn't help but stare at, um, the air in _front _of his butt as he walked away.

I stopped staring when I noticed Angel giving me a weird glance. I instantly blushed, knowing that she was way too young to be hearing my thoughts at that moment, so I quickly decided to ask a question to get my mind off of Danny.

"_So_," I drawled out, desperate for a new topic. Thankfully, Iggy had one.

"So what are we gonna do here?" he asked.

"Good question," I told him. "I don't know. I haven't really gotten anything yet. I guess we can relax until I figure some stuff out." In other words, we'll relax until my stupid voice decides to tell me what the hell we're doing.

_Good job, Max,_ it said, right on cue._ You finally decided to ask._

_Ask what? I know why we're here; to save the world._

_Yes, but to be more specific, you're here for something. Or rather, someone._

_Plan on getting to the point anytime soon?_ I asked it, exasperated.

_You're here for a partner. You need him to help you save the world and he needs you to help realize his true potential._

_A _what_?_ That had totally thrown me off guard. A _partner_? Are you kidding me?

But the voice didn't answer any of my desperate pleas for more info about this _partner_ I was somehow supposed to pull out of my ass.

Just where was I supposed to get a partner? I pondered this as I quietly watched my flock munch hungrily on their burgers and fries.


	8. Harry Potter Part Deux

**-ADOPTED-**

by Miriam1

* * *

**Harry Potter**

Part Deux

* * *

There was nothing to say, nothing he could do. Eyes the size of saucers, afraid of and for everything, Danny bolted. A line of students were shoved to the aside as he ran past them, desperate to escape. A single voice among the terrified whispers and murmurs of confusion called his name to stop him, but the boy didn't pause to listen. The door of the classroom closed shut with an ominous slam, startling the already bewildered students, and the professor's shoulders slumped in frustration and defeat.

"…Danny," he whispered, full of nothing but sorrow for all the mutual loss they shared. Danny had lost his friends, his teacher, and his family. He had left his hometown, and now he was losing his personality. But Vlad wouldn't let him. He wasn't going to let the boy lose the last thing that defined him.

"Class," he whispered hoarsely, turning from the closed door to face his students, who were all looking up at him naively. "Class dismissed. Tidy the room before you go, I can't have it looking like a mess."

That was all he said to them before he turned on his heels and jogged out the door to find his nephew, leaving the class full of Slytherins and Gryffindors alone.

"What the hell just happened?" Draco's voice rose above the silence, capturing everyone's attention. Quiet shouts of, "He's _your_ friend" and, "How the bloody hell would we know?" sounded in reply.

"He's _your_ friend, Malfoy," Harry said accusingly, over the other's voices. "You should know. What did you do to him?"

"I didn't do anything, Potter!" Draco exclaimed in reply. "Like you said, he's _my_ friend. Why would I do anything to him?"

"You pushed him, I saw you! You knew just like everyone else he has no talent!"

"But I meant to push _you_!"

Harry's hand flew to his pocket, and he fingered his wand threateningly. Draco did the same, and they stood, hands in their pockets, growling angrily, until they noticed the rest of the classroom standing around them, waiting for a fight.

"Get lost!" Draco yelled to them, and many of them hung their heads and slowly filed out of the classroom. Draco turned back to Harry, pointing a threatening finger at him. "I'm warning you, Potter-"

"Don't you threaten me, you already threatened the professor's nephew-"

Harry was cut off, but not by Malfoy. They both stiffened as a faint yell sounded from outside in the hallway.

"What was that?" Draco whispered mostly to himself, his face paling.

"I don't know," Harry whispered back distractedly as he began walking towards the door. "I think it was the professor."

"You're not seriously going to find out, are you?!" Draco asked in alarm. "You _bloody _git-"

"Shh!" Harry waved his hand in a silencing motion, and walked out the door. Malfoy felt he had no choice but to follow him.

Once they had exited the room, the voices grew louder, distantly echoing off the corridor walls. Harry found the opposite wall and pressed his ear against it, listening as hard as he could on the voices. He followed them, trailing the wall as they got louder and louder. Draco looked timidly behind him before following Harry, making sure to stay at least five feet away from the boy.

"What do you hear?" he asked. "Where the hell are they coming from?"

Harry shushed him again, and turned the corner of the long, empty hallway, forcing Draco to speed up so he wouldn't be alone.

Looking around, he noticed that this stretch of hall was a house hall. The odd thing was, was that it wasn't Slytherin, the house Danny belonged to, but the house Professor Masters' house, Ravenclaw. Both Harry and Draco pressed their ears to the door of his living quarters.

"You don't _have_ to go _any_where," their professors' voice rang out, loud and sure. Both boys were stunned to have found themselves listening in on a private conversation of the school's most mysterious teacher and student. Their eyes widened when they heard him continue.

-

Danny didn't even think to run to his own room; everything he needed was in Vlad's office. He burst through the man's room and began sifting through his things.

"Where's my bag… my bag…," he muttered to himself, as he threw item after item out of Vlad's drawers. Papers, pens, files, spare change; nothing was spared and it all ended up on the floor.

"Daniel!" Danny's head shot up in surprise when his guardian opened his office door. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You risked our cover!"

"I'm leaving, Vlad," he told him simply, and continued digging through the man's private drawers for his own bag of valuables. It only took three long strides for Vlad to cross the room. He grabbed Danny's arms and dragged him to a small cushioned chair.

"No."

"But I have to get out of-"

"You don't _have_ to go _any_where," Vlad cut through his lame excuse, crossing his arms angrily. "In case you haven't noticed, you have nowhere to _go_. Now I want answers."

"There's nothing to answer, Vlad! I want to go home!"

"Your home is gone, what about that don't you understand?" the man yelled loudly, effectively silencing the teen. "You can answer me this, what the hell was that, back there?"

Danny crossed his arms and turned away. "Nothing."

"Oh, it was something," Vlad growled. "Do you have any idea how hard it is for _me_ to know that _I'm_ your worst fear after everything you've been through? I wasn't the one who killed your family—murderers of some goddamned occult did!"

"You're _not_ my worst fear," Danny whispered quietly, to himself.

Vlad froze, looking at the boy for the first time. "What?"

"I said, you're not my worst fear," he said, raising his voice. "You never were, and now you never will be!"

"So what _is_ your worst fear?" Danny didn't reply. Instead he stood up and walked around Vlad to resume digging through his drawers. Vlad continue, undeterred.

"If it wasn't me, what was it, then, hmm?" he asked, throwing his arms open in a questioning gesture. "Was it the death of everyone you loved? If it was, then you should probably learn to get over it, they're long since dead."

Danny paused to wince, but didn't answer.

"Was it the death of Valerie Grey?" the man went on. "It could be, she's the only friend you have left. But it's not, is it?"

Still no answer. Silence except for the clatter of things being moved around inside Vlad's desk.

"So if it's not me, what is it? What could you possibly be afraid of?" His voice was steadily getting louder. "Her hover board? The Ghost Gauntlets? Whatever operation I was talking about? That empty broken thermos in her hands? _What_?"

Suddenly, Danny found he was no longer able to control himself. He froze when a sob forced his body to convulse and tears began finding their way into his eyes. He dug his hand through the bottom drawer one last time to pull out the small duffel bag he had asked Vlad to keep safe for him the day they had arrived at the school.

"The thermos," he whispered hoarsely. "You're right. The empty thermos is what scared me the most. And _then_ the Ghost Gauntlets."

Vlad frowned. "Mind filling me in?" he wondered.

Danny unzipped the duffel bag and shoved his hand inside. "No. Just telling you, _you_ didn't scare me."

"Well that's nice to hear, I suppose," Vlad shrugged. "But you know it would only help you if you told me what went on back there."

"All right," Danny sighed, and the tears slowly began to stop. Wiping his face on the sleeve of his robe, he continued. "There's a reason I can't tell you. The boggart thing that looked like you scared me a little. If you asked me to go through with the operation, I don't know how long I could last without it. I want it so _bad_, I want so bad to be normal. But I know it's not-…not possible."

"…Daniel," Vlad sighed, dropping his face to his hands. "I don't know what to do with you. I don't know how you know about the operation, but if you tell me, I'll use my better judgment to decide whether or not it's the right thing."

"No! Don't offer it to me! Never!" Danny cried hysterically, standing up and backing away, clutching a crumpled laminated photo in one hand. The fact that Vlad was planning on asking him to go through with the operation was the one compelling factor to just out and tell him. "Okay, okay! I'll tell you! It's me!"

"You-?"

"_Yes_! I'm so scared! What if I go crazy? Start killing people? I know I could do it, don't you see how easy it'd be?"

"Daniel, you know as well as I do that I have the power to stop you should that ever happen."

Daniel nodded, not really willing or courageous enough to tell Vlad the whole truth, as he somberly sat back down on the reclining chair, elbows on his knees. Danny felt Vlad place a large hand on his shoulder as he looked down longingly at the wrinkled photograph in his hands. He suddenly found himself realizing that it was only too possible that the human Desiree had died of heartbreak, that maybe the palm reader lady at the fair had hit the nail on the head. He himself didn't know how much longer he would be able to last.

He couldn't bring himself to force a smile as he looked up at Vlad, but Vlad was able to force one for him.

"Come on, my boy," he said encouragingly, patting the boy on the back. "Let's get to lunch."

He had taken three steps to the exit before he heard the two distinct footsteps running away from behind his office door.


	9. Fairly Odd Parents

**Fairly Odd Parents**

Cutesy One-shot

* * *

Danni ran as fast as she could in human form, panting hard all the way. Two days ago, she had been saved and "re-stabilized" by her cousin, Danny. Now she was better than ever, though she didn't really want to stay in the same town Danny lived. She wanted to become her own person, in another town. And earlier this morning, she had found that other town. A cute little city called Dimmsdale. She had walked around all morning, trying to find a place to stay. But somehow, some way, Vlad had found her. Well, not _him_ specifically, just his lackeys. But all the same, it meant he knew where she was and had even send minions to capture her. Right now, she was running from them, five ghosts that were on strict orders to capture her only in the absence of civilians. Which meant that she _really_ needed to find a civilian.

She pushed herself even harder and she began gasping for breath. Her human form was just not cut out for athletics, a genetic trait she could only blame on Danny and his parents. She blindly swung around the corner, skidding on her new sneakers. Looking behind her for any sign of her pursuers, she was surprised to find that she couldn't see—

_Bam!_

Suddenly, she was on the ground, a searing pain radiating from her forehead. Which meant she could only have run into something. Stars danced before her eyes before she realized that it wasn't so much of a some_thing_ as a some_one_. A little boy who couldn't have been much older than herself was sprawled on the hard sidewalk in front of her. He was dressed in a matching pink shirt and hat combo, paired with small black slacks and a light pink book bag filled to the brim with pastel green text books. _A civilian!_

"Ow!" he cried, clutching his forehead, where an angry red mark was forming above his eyebrows. "Hey! Watch where you're going!"

Danni did a quick 360, checking behind her to see if the ghosts were gone. Sure enough, they had disappeared.

"Oh my gosh!" she laughed in relief. "You totally save my life!"

The boy's frown faded into a look of confusion. "What?"

"I was being followed," she explained, "but they're gone now, you saved me!"

"Umm, okay," he drawled, not sure about what to say to that. Just then, the girl's stomach grumbled loudly enough for the both of them to hear it.

"Oh," she groaned reluctantly, just then realizing how empty her stomach actually was. She hadn't eaten for over twenty four hours! "Hey, would you happen to have any… food? I haven't eaten in like, forever."

"Uh," he paused for a moment, and leaned his head to one side as if he was consulting his backpack, which would have been silly. "Fine. Yeah, we have food. Uh, I mean _I_ have food." Danni cocked her head to one side when the boy's pupils contracted into nervous pinpoints and his voice became shrill, like he was catching a mistake. "My parents have food! Uh, just follow me."

Suddenly, the boy turned and ran. Danni picked herself up to follow him, but he was already ten feet ahead of her. Looking behind her one last time, she picked up her pace and jogged to catch up to him.

-

"Cosmo, Wanda!" he cried in terror. "Do we have food? I finally meet a pretty girl and we don't have any food. I wish we had the best food _ever_!"

"Sure thing, sweetie," his backpack replied and then it heaved a heavy sigh. "Don't worry, sport, you're doing fine. You don't have to run—don't be nervous."

"How can I not be nervous?" His voice was about two octaves higher than normal and he didn't slow down. "She's prettier than Trixie! I've never seen her here before, what if she thinks I'm weird? Or—or ugly?"

"And crazy, don't forget crazy," his green books added.

"Not helping!"

"Okay, champ," his backpack told him calmly. "Stop running. Walk with her. Show her your house, _then_ get her the food. How could she not like you?"

"Because he has big teeth and decidedly selfish personality?"

Choosing to ignore his green books, Timmy took a deep breath and finally slowed down. The girl behind him almost ran into him again.

"What is it?" she asked, skidding to a halt. "Oh, my gosh, do you see ghosts? It's ghosts, isn't it? Where are they? I'll go get help!"

She turned to run away, but Timmy called out.

"No, wait! I don't see any ghosts."

The girl stopped in her tracks. "You don't?"

"No," he said, puffing out his chest in order to make himself look stronger. "Ghosts aren't real. You don't have to be scared." The girl giggled but didn't reply. "Here, my house is this way, I'll get you some food."

He had told her to wait in the living room, that he would bring the food to her. She'd nodded and smiled appreciatively, eager to receive anything that was edible. In the kitchen, Timmy searched through the freezer, digging through wished-for food to find the perfect thing for her.

"Here it is!" he cried, finally, holding up a plastic container labeled "Ice Cream." "Chocolate Fudge!"

He turned to walk back to the living room when a huge puff of smoke suddenly appeared, blocking his exit. The cloud of magical smoke gave way to an all-too familiar figure.

"Please, you have to help me!" it said, sounding upset.

"Norm!" was the only thing Timmy and Wanda could say in response, their surprise about the fact that he was actually here too great to actually understand what he said.

So he said it again. "I'm begging you to help me!"

"With what?"

Norm grabbed the boy's pink shirt and hefted him off the ground. "My girl! I was going through old photos and I just realized how much I miss her!"

"What?"

"I want to see her so bad, T-man! I just need one small little favor," the genie begged. "Just give me one wish; wish that I can see her."

"After everything you did? No way!" Timmy growled angrily, tearing his shirt out of Norm's grip. How dare Norm show his face again? The genie had almost taken away the two he loved most.

"Come on, little man! I'm _begging_! You give me that one wish and I'll give you the other two, free of charge, no loopholes."

The temptation was great. Two loophole and rule-free wishes?

"Say I did grant you that wish. How can I know you won't cheat me out of my other two?"

"You're not actually considering it?" Wanda asked, surprised. "After everything-"

Norm shoved her away. "You'd just have to take my word," he said. Clasping his hands together, he continued, "Please. I'm desperate."

Timmy sighed, he sounded sincere. "Okay, okay. So who is she?"

"Her name's Desiree Jamil." Norm sighed as he said her name. He dug through a pocket on the inside of his vest and pulled out an old photograph. Giving it one last longing glance, the genie handed it to Timmy. Timmy took the picture out of his hands and inspected it. It was a head shot of a beautiful Saudi woman. Her hair seemed to move even through the picture, and her smile was captivating.

"Wow," was all Timmy could say. "How old is she?"

"Hmm," Norm sighed, crossing his arms. "I think she's at least several centuries old. Last I heard, she was with the Sultan."

"Several centuries?"

"Well, yeah," Norm replied as if it was obvious. "And she's human, so my seeing her would require us going back in time."

"Timmy!" a voice sung from the living room, "Are you almost done in there? Not to be rude or anything, but I'm really hungry."

"Who is that?" Norm wondered aloud. "You actually landed a girl? I want to see her!"

"Quick!" Timmy cried. "Hide!"

Cosmo and Wanda became his textbooks and book bag once again, and Timmy shoved Norm into the fridge. Just as he closed the fridge door, Danni walked into the kitchen.

"What's taking so long?"

"Oh! Nothing, just couldn't find the ice cream. But I found it! It's right here," Timmy said, pointing to the ice cream container on the counter.

"What's that?" she asked, ignoring the ice cream and looking at the photo in his hands.

"What, this?" he asked, laughing. "Just an old photo…of someone."

She ripped it out of his hands and gasped in shock when she saw who it was. "Is that…Desiree?"


	10. Heroes Series

**Heroes**

Insert Lame Title Here

* * *

Peter paced his one-bedroom flat restlessly. A couple of minutes ago, he'd suffered a vision with no one to call for but the only person near enough to help. Adam.

"Peter, you called?" Adam asked, appearing at the flimsy apartment door. "Are you all right?"

Peter nodded. "I'm fine. I just… had a vision."

"Huh, you're a very well-rounded person, you know that, right?"

Peter ignored him. "My head hurts."

"Hmm. Have you been taking any medicines?"

"No. Why?"

"Well how do you know it was a vision?" Adam asked. "A _vision_ vision?"

"Look," Peter replied, holding his head in his hands to emphasize the fact that his head was killing him. "I just_ know_, all right?"

"All right, all right," Adam said, holding up his hands in surrender to Peter's frustration. "Well? Are you going to tell me what you saw?"

"That's the thing," Peter told him as he walked over to the sink and poured himself a glass of tap water. "I don't—don't really _know_. There was this boy, and he was flying—like Nathan—and shooting green stuff. Out of his _hands_. Sort of like me, you know, shooting energy out of mine, except his was green. There was someone chasing him. He was really young but he looked really powerful. And he wasn't normal looking. He had white hair, and green contacts."

"Did you see any surroundings? You know, anything that might give you a clue-"

"New York. I saw a sign that said Amity Park. That's just outside the city."

Adam nodded, and neither man said anything for a few seconds until Adam spoke up.

"Powerful, did you say?"

"Yeah," Peter answered, sipping his drink. "The kid really packed a punch."

-

"_Well, I don't know what to tell you, Suresh_."

"How about telling me the truth?"

Mohinder held the phone with his shoulder as he quickly typed on his laptop.

"_I can't tell you why we need the boy. That's strictly confidential._"

"Fine." Mohinder stood up from his computer and grabbed the phone in his left hand. He was so frustrated with that damn Bennet always thinking he knew exactly what to do when in reality, he only knew as much as everyone else. "Fine! I'll tell Parkman to bring Molly in."

He angrily snapped his cell phone closed, effectively cutting ties with the man on the other side. And, after a pause and a weary sigh, he flipped it back open and speed dialed Matt.

"Matt. Do you think you can get Molly out of school tomorrow?"

-

"Here's the Advil. Take a couple and get some rest. We have to disappear tomorrow."

Adam handed Peter the small tube of pills and left his room to sleep on the couch. Peter popped three before grabbing the half-emptied glass of water sitting on his bedside table. He swallowed and moved to his closet after setting the glass back down and, turning off the lights, he pulled off his shirt.

"Dammit, not now…."

He had just undone his buckle when he felt a familiar fogginess overcome his mind. He ran to his dresser and pulled out a pencil and a pad of white paper. Flipping through drawings of a young, scrawny boy with penciled-in black hair taking part in miscellaneous situations and a stronger white-haired boy who was always fighting, Peter found a blank page in the very back just before his eyes completely clouded over.

Suddenly, he was no longer in his small apartment, but standing on a bench in some park.

"No!" a voice cried out in the silence of the night.

Peter's head snapped towards the voice and gasped at what he saw. It was the scrawny kid yet again, on his knees, begging, while several familiar people crowded around him.

"I swear, I'll do anything! Just don't-!"

It was then that Peter noticed that Noah Bennet held a teenager by the arm in one hand and was pointing a gun to her head with the other. She was pretty, but her mascara became blurred by her silent tears of fear.

"Don't, Danny! Don't-!" she cried, but was cut off by Bennet's hand sliding over her mouth.

The boy gave her one last apologetic look, and thrust his arms forward. Immediately someone else stepped forward and quickly chained his arms together in weird, glowing handcuffs. Another man aimed a small pistol at the boy.

"No!" the girl sobbed, but it was too late. The pistol was fired and the boy fell backwards, landing flat on his back with a dart sticking out of his right shoulder. Peter breathed in relief when he realized that it was only a tranquilizer.

"_No!_" the girl sobbed again, and his gaze flicked from the boy back to her. Tears were freely flowing down her face, now, and she struggled to disengage herself from Bennet's arms. He let her go, and she stumbled from the momentum of her pull and fell to the ground. Peter breathed another relieved sigh, and his hand flew to his heart. He'd thought for _sure_-

"I'm sorry," Noah Bennet said, pointing the barrel of the gun at the young girl. "You'd only talk."

Peter's eyes went wide.

"What-?" was the last thing she breathed, before two bullets were fired into her chest.

-

"Aahh!" Peter woke up to reality, screaming as loudly as he could. He vaguely felt something in his hand and he threw it as hard as he could. It hit Adam, who had just waken from his slumber in the small living room, and was coming through the door.

"Ouch!" he yelled, as a hard-bound notebook hit him in the head. Throwing them off, he cried, "Damn it, Peter! What's wrong?"

"Give her your blood!" he cried in response. "She's dying! Give her your blood!"

Adam rushed to Peter and felt his forehead. He was burning hot. His face was red, and he was sweating uncontrollably.

"Shh, Peter, you're fine, now. Nothing's happening," Adam said, desperately trying to calm his friend down.

"Your _blood_, Adam!" Peter demanded. That was when Adam decided they'd talk about it in the morning instead of right then.

"Yes, I will, don't worry, she's going to be fine," he said, not really sure who he was referring to. "She's all right. You're all right. Let's get back to sleep, shall we?"

Peter shook his head and sniffled in protest, but fell backwards onto his bed, thoroughly exhausted.

Adam quietly walked out of Peter's room, rubbing his eyes and intent on getting back to sleep. He moved to close his friend's door, but found he couldn't. Crouching down, he felt around the dark to find what was stopping the door from closing and found the small notebook that had hit him in the head a few minutes previous. He picked it up. Flipping through it, his eyes went wide with fascination at the multitude of different drawings. There were two boys and one girl total in all of the drawings in the notebook. He turned to the very last page, and gasped at what he saw.

"What the hell...?"

As immortal as they come, of course the great Takezo Kensei knew of ghosts. And knowing of ghosts also meant knowing of ancient prophecies. Adam had known a great seer who had prophesised of anarchy in a successful country—not unlike the Ancient Roman Empire—that, at the time, had yet to be established. And not just any normal anarchy. No, this anarchy was going to be political chaos in a time of desperate need—a time when ghosts would be set free from the underworld.

Now, of course Adam didn't believe it. He had listened respectfully, but on the inside, he thought it was complete bullocks. But that seer, his old friend, had foretold of a young green-eyed, white-haired boy who was half-human and half-ghost. And his ghost half would lead the supernatural and superhuman revolution. The whole world would change.

Adam dropped the notebook and it fluttered noisily to the floor. It landed open on the very last page that contained the very last drawing. And that drawing was a depiction of a scrawny green-eyed, white-haired boy being held prisoner by none other than the powerless, yet infamous Noah Bennet.


	11. Disney's Anastasia

**Anastasia**

Loosely Based on the 1997 Disney Film

* * *

**December 4, 1916**

"Your highness."

Ten year old Samantha Manson dug herself deeper under the downy satin covers of her bed with a groan of frustration and regret.

"Your royal highness, _please_," her maid, Maria, begged. "You _must _be ready for tonight."

It was days like these that Samantha despised being the grand duchess and daughter of the tsar. "I don't want to go," she whispered into her pillow. Maria ignored her and began bustling around the room, cleaning and moving things that were out of place.

"Your dress has just arrived from the tailors."

Samantha slowly turned her head to see a pristine white dress hanging next to her bed. She groaned again as she forced herself to slide out of bed.

"Samantha," an older voice called and she turned as someone approached her bedroom door.

"_Babushka!_" she cried, elated. "Grandmama!" Her grandmother was her most favorite person in the world.

"Samantha, darling, you're not dressed yet?" her grandmother asked. Samantha noticed her grandmother held her arms behind her back.

"No. I just woke up. What do you have?"

"I brought something for you when I was traveling," her grandmother replied kindly before pulling a box from behind her back.

"A present!" Samantha squealed before she could remember to contain herself. "What is it?"

She took the box out of her grandmothers hands and ripped the lid off of the box. Inside was another small box made of porcelain and a golden key attached to a chain. Samantha's eyes grew wide as she studied the intricate designs carved and painted onto both the box and the key.

"It's beautiful," she whispered in awe.

Her grandmother took the thin chain out of the box and carefully wrapped it around her granddaughter's neck. Samantha bent her head forward and pulled her hair to the side as her grandmother fixed the clasp.

When it was on, she turned around and posed.

"You look absolutely beautiful, Grand Duchess Samantha," her grandmother said with a smile.

-

Later that night:

"It is the greatest of pleasures to see you tonight, _Markiz_ Vladimir."

"I can only say that it is the greatest of honors to _be_ here, Tsar Manson."

Samantha tried not to her eyes and fidget in her tight, itchy dress as she listened to her mother and father exchange greetings and pleasantries with their guests.

"…for three _hundred _magnificent years, and may it still be stand just as tall tomorrow…." Samantha didn't understand what Markiz Vladimir was talking about, so she decided to study the man. From his face, she had always assumed he was just nearing his thirties. He always dressed fashionably, but tonight, he was wearing a stunning Armani suit rimmed with black silk that he could only have imported from France. He stood tall and proud, and he had a small goatee that moved with his jaw when he spoke that matched his smooth black hair. Samantha's parents loved him dearly; he had been a family friend for quite some time, though Samantha didn't know exactly what he did for them, and was very important to the royal court. The way he flaunted his appearance showed just how highly he was thought of. If she were any older, she might have thought the man elegantly handsome, and very charming.

"What do you mean, 'you hope my rule stands just as tall tomorrow?'" Samantha's father suddenly asked.

Samantha never saw it coming. Markiz Vladimir only smiled vengefully in reply, and chill ran down her back. She knew immediately something was wrong, but she didn't know exactly what it was. She looked up to her father only to see him looking over the Markiz's shoulder at the exits of the room. She followed his gaze and gasped.

All the windows and doors were guarded by men hidden by black robes and hoods. No more than several seconds passed before even more broke the glass as they came through the upper windows and pulled guns out of the secret pockets of their cloaks.

It was completely silent until a scream from one of the guests filled the hall. The dance floor was filled with nothing but chaos as everyone tried to escape at the same time.

She felt her grandmother's hand grab her wrist and pull her towards the back door. She allowed herself to be dragged away until she saw the men in black rush at her father and the Markiz seize her mother. She began to scream in terror as she reached back for them, but her grandmother was strong enough to drag her away from them despite her attempts to join her mother and father. She could only watch as they were pushed and pulled in different directions and her family was broken apart. She couldn't here the Markiz's voice over the chaos and pandemonium of the ballroom, but she read his lips as he spoke to her parents.

"…You will pay for ruining me."

She stopped pulling against her grandmother as she saw the words come from his mouth and allowed herself to be pulled into the back kitchen room. They went through the kitchen doors and through a pantry, which was actually a secret pathway to the outside.

"You're safe now, Samantha," her grandmother comforted her. "There's no need to worry—"

"My music box!" the girl cried suddenly. "Oh, grandmama, I forgot my music box!"

She broke out of her grandmother's grip and ran back through the pantry and through the back doors of the kitchen to the stairs. Racing up the stairs, not bothering to see if her grandmother was following her, she ran to her room. Looking around, she quickly scanned the room, trying to find it. Where had she put it?

She heard footsteps just outside her door as she spotted it, sitting on the corner of her shelf. Just as she grabbed it, the door burst open and she spun.

She sighed in relief when she realized it wasn't anyone from the Bolshevik troops, but caught her breath again when the boy at the door cried, "They're coming!"

He ran at her and grabbed her wrists, forcing her to lose her grip on her precious music box.

"My box!"

"Don't worry, duchess, I'll make sure you escape," the boy said and her attention was diverted from the box to her savior. The boy who was pulling her through a servant's door she had never been through was a servant boy she had only seen once around the castle. He had raven black hair and stunning blue eyes, but his clothes were rugged and dirty.

"Through here." He shoved her through a small cut out door in the side of the castle wall. "There's a train at the _stantsiya_. Catch it and ride it far away."

"But my box—"

"I'll…," he started, looking behind him as if to judge whether it was worth going back upstairs or not. "I'll save your box. _Pozhaluista,_ _pakah!_"

He closed the door and Samantha suddenly found herself outside in the harsh snow of the Russian winter, without food, money, or her family. She began to run away from the castle to follow the servant boy's orders, in search of the train station.

She sprinted through the city of Saint Petersburg, following signs to the train station.

She sighed, relieved, when she read the sign on the right of the building. _Stantsiya poezd. _She had finally reached the train station. She avoided the _militsia _and ran through the street full of taxis and busses, around the long lines to where the train to _Paris, France_ was boarding_._

"_Adeen_, _poshalusta,_"she said to the man collecting tickets. She didn't wait for him to acknowledge her before she ran around him onto the train.

She felt a strong hand grab her upper arm and pull her back. "_Net!_" the man said angrily. "No ticket, no entrance!"

She was thrown off the train and ignored. Soon enough, the train began to steam. She watched dejectedly as it began to pull out from the station. She turned to leave, but stopped when she heard her name.

"Samantha!"

She turned back to the train and looked through all the windows. She was stunned to see her grandmother in the caboose, waving at her in desperation.

"_Samantha!_"

Samantha ran at the train as fast as she could, ignoring the _militsia's_ yell of, "Stop her! She's wanted by the _Markiz_!"

She jumped onto the tracks and followed the train as it moved faster, and faster. She saw her grandmother reaching towards her, and Samantha did the same. Her arms outstretched, she jumped onto the caboose of the train and felt her grandmother's fingers brush hers. But the train was moving too fast. She fell through her grandmother's grip with a startled cry and fell backwards onto the tracks.

The last thing she heard before the darkness took over was her grandmother's cry of, "Paris!"


	12. Maximum Ride Part Two

**Maximum Ride:**

Flying Without Wings

* * *

Okay. I've made up my mind. This was the last straw. I will not allow the voice in my head to tell me to do something and not tell me how or why. I'm just not gonna put up with this kind of treatment! Wow. That sounded really strange, so let me rephrase; I'm leaving with my flock and my voice isn't going to do anything about it. It had led me to this pathetic town only to tell me I needed a partner. And it just happened to leave out why, or, even better yet, _who_. I don't need this.

"Come on, guys," I moaned for the umpteenth time. "You finished yet?"

My flock hat finally finished eating and were leaning back in their seats. If they had belts, they probably would have needed to be loosened.

"Yeah, I guess so," Iggy reluctantly replied for his siblings as he picked the last piece of whatever he had eaten from his teeth.

"Oh, Iggy, _gross_," Nudge whined shrilly. Iggy just grinned.

"Then let's go!" I said a little too loudly. I looked around to see that the restaurant was practically empty. It was late on what had to be a school night, and everyone had left except for the old creeper eating by himself in the corner, and Valerie, who was leaning on the register counter, reading a magazine with a bored look on her face. So, nothing to be worried about, right?

"But Max," Angel pleaded. "We just ate. I'm tired."

"It is late," Fang pointed out from beside me.

"So what do you want me to do?" I asked, a little flustered. My voice had certainly gotten me worked up. "Let you guys sleep here? In this dumpy town?"

"It's not dumpy," the Gasman said, looking around.

"Yeah," Nudge went on. "It's a really cute city!" Wow. Thanks for the support, flock.

I leaned forward and rested my head on my hands, elbows on table. "Fine," I all but huffed.

"We have money," Gaz said.

"And no one's hunting us," Nudge added. "Hey, I know!" She clapped her hands excitedly. The metal napkin dispenser came flying towards her and hit her palms. She squealed at the unexpected touch and waved her hands around madly. I quickly looked around again to make sure no one took notice. She was still getting used to the idea of being magnetic. So sue her.

"Sorry," she apologized quickly before setting the napkin dispenser back where it belonged. "As I was saying, we could stay in a hotel."

"That would be totally awesome!" Gaz cried, and I saw Iggy, Nudge, and Angel nodding their heads in agreement.

I sighed. "Whatever you guys want."

Hollers of cheer erupted from my flock and this time, I knew that at least Valerie had looked up from her magazine to stare at us, if not the strange creepy dude sitting behind us, too.

-

Well, it turned out we did have a lot of money. There wasn't any reason to waste perfectly good cash, so I checked ourselves in at Amity Park's finest hotel. It wasn't five stars, but it was nice. Oh, all right, so it was a Holiday Inn, but still. The two queen beds in every room were soft and perfectly made. I had us in a three room locked door suite, so we had three adjoining rooms, all connected with doors in between them. It was awesome. And the rest of my flock must have thought so, too, since the first thing they did when we entered the rooms was open all the connecting doors and race through them.

While they ran around and jumped on the beds, I decided to catch up on a little Max time. Namely, the time I spend thinking about what the heck we should do next.

After a few minutes of fruitless brainstorming, I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.

Tiffany Snow, the local channel's newswoman was speaking quickly into the tiny microphone clipped onto her lapel.

_"...And this exciting turn of events puts our hero in an even more powerful position. His stunning turn-around during the invasion of Amity Park is strengthening still. He's now gained more than seventy two percent of the town's support which is a great improvement upon his previous sixty percent,_" she chirped, almost too cheerfully for a news reporter. Suddenly, she brought a hand to her ear, where she could only have been hiding a news station supplied microphone chip, and her eyes slightly widened. "_Oh! It seems there's even a battle going on right at this very moment. Not too surprising, since this month has seen an influx of ghosts. Our weather ma_—er, reporter_, Lance Thunder is out right now on the scene. Can you tell us what's going on out there, Lance?_" As the screen changed scenes and the reporters exchanged quick rehearsed greetings, I wondered whether I had heard correctly. Did she just say influx of _ghosts_? Nah. Must of said something else. Like hosts, or... boasts. Or something.

"_I sure can, thank you, Tiffany_," said Lance, who was standing outside what I recognized was the town hall. I instantly stiffened when I saw blurs of light and dark flying around behind him. _"Danny Phantom can be seen behind me fighting yet _another_ ghost." _I couldn't help but notice the bored quality in his voice underneath the fake enthusiasm. It was like whatever was flying around behind him was just another part of his average, mundane day. "Guys," I cried loudly so they could hear me in the two other rooms. "You have to check this out!"

There was a rush of little feet on thin carpet as they all ran towards me. They crowded around me to watch the news report.

"..._The damage isn't too significant, but the fight's not over yet, so we can still expect at least one building to be hit._" The screen then split, so Tiffany at her desk was on the right half of the TV, and Lance in his suit, standing in front of some really strange aerial fight, was on the left. _"Thank you, Lance,"_ Tiffany said politely before she took over the screen.

_"It is definitely a strange turn of events that Danny Phantom"_—In the top, right corner of the screen, a box appeared with a familiar looking boy with startling green eyes and a sick, black jumpsuit, grinning wickedly out at us—_"once Amity's Public Enemy Number One, has become the town's newest_—_and quite possibly greatest_—_hero."_

So of course, the next thing I knew, before I even got a chance to think about what Mr. Thunder and Miss Snow had even said, my voice was all, _Max..._.

_Ma-ax..., _it whispered, filling my mind like carbon monoxide fills a room.

I crossed my arms and focused on the mole on Tiffany's cheek as she babbled on about FDA requirements and the restaurant we had just eaten at.

I was so _not_ going to pay it any attention. Voice, consider yourself totally ignored.

_Max, don't ignore me._

I focused harder on that mole. The TV wasn't high def or anything, but I could still clearly see just exactly how big it was. It moved up and down with her jaw as she spoke.

Then, suddenly, a blinding pain made me lose any hold I had on reality. It hurt so badly, I could only see faint outlines of my flock as they huddled around me when I cried out. I couldn't even hear them. It was throbbing and throbbing and throbbing and I couldn't even begin to think about thinking about anything.

And suddenly, just as it had started, it stopped.

I looked around blearily and saw my flock, but I couldn't hear them. I was stuck in my own mind.

_Good, I have your attention now._

Holy (insert swearing that would make fifty bajillion sailors cry here) was I going to kill whoever was projecting that voice in my mind. Kill. Them.

_Max, you couldn't find me if I gave you my address and a Garmin GPS. _

_Oh yeah?_ I mentally growled right back._ We'll see about that, you_—

_Shut up and listen. _

Well, there was no point in arguing. I did _not_ want to experience pain like that _ever_ again. Physical pain, I can totally handle. Broken bones, bullets, bruises, cuts, scrapes. But pain coming from inside your head? I'll take a rain check. Actually, I'll just not take a check at all, thank you.

_Good, _Voice continued. _You wanted me to tell you who your partner is supposed to be?_

_Um, yeah,_ I answered weakly. _Might be useful information if you don't want me to ditch this town._

_That, _it said, and somehow I just knew it was referring to the creepy kid smirking out at me from the television, _is your new partner. Catch him if you can, you're going to need all the help you can get._

_Him? That scrawny little kid? I've never had problems catching people before, _I huffed. Hey, I'm fully confident in my abilities to catch people. Why, if I was a cop, I'd be top of the department. I'd be more than that, even. I can fly and beat people up, after all. _What makes you think this guy'll be a tough catch?_

_Just a hunch, but he might be more intangible than you think. Be careful, Max._

I've had my voice long enough to know when it likes to leave me. Just after it answers my question with just enough information that it gives me more questions. Have I ever gotten answers?

_You've never needed answers from me, Max, _it piped up one last time, surprising me. _You always find a way to get them on your own._


	13. Reality TV

**Reality TV**

Written in the Voice of Yours Truly

* * *

"One hour!" Jen reminded her from downstairs.

Danni sighed. She still had yet to even get out of bed. Sniffling, she turned off the plasma set hanging from her wall and pushed the covers out of her way. The piles of DVDs, the tins of chocolates, and the boxes of tissues all fell to the ground as she pushed herself out of bed.

She made her way to the pride and joy of the whole apartment; her closet. Digging through mounds of misplaced shoes she had never bothered to put away, she made her way to the section designated for her cocktail dresses. Danni shifted through five of them before heaving a sigh and deciding to pull them all out. She had never counted before, but she was pretty sure she had somewhere around thirty party dresses. She almost stumbled under the weight of them all as she carried them to her bed.

She neatly lined as many as she could along the length of her bed and paused for a moment as she selected several to try on first. She could hear her roommate and her roommate's friends making a mess of the kitchen below and she winced. She loved Jen dearly, but sometimes she almost wished she didn't need her. With the money she had, Danni hadn't _needed_ a roommate _per se_, but the truth of the matter was, she just couldn't bear to live alone.

After her first roommate—an old colleague—had died, Danni found Jen on an online service dedicated to pairing roommates. The moment they had met, they were instant friends. Jen had money and needed a roommate because she didn't have friends at Columbia. Danni had money and needed a roommate because she needed a friend outside of work. So, together, they invested in a large, two-story designer apartment on the east side of SoHo. They were a perfect match.

Someone squealed downstairs, leading Danni to believe everyone was ready to go and were waiting only for her, so she quickly decided on a black mini.

"Conservative, yet fun," she told herself as she twirled around in front of the floor length mirror. She then knelt down and began digging for the perfect shoes.

"Hurry up, Dee!" Jen's best friend, Mel, who lived on the Upper East side of Manhattan yelled. Danni scrambled to her oversized vanity before screaming, "You guys just _said_ I had an hour!"

She felt around the surface for her blush, humming to herself all the while. She really needed to cheer herself up; her job required she be very cheerful. Danni looked herself squarely in the eyes.

_I'm very pretty_, she told herself forcefully. "So there's no reason to _not_ be happy. You don't need him anyway." But she still felt that a part of her was missing. _Something's wrong,_ she thought.

She decided that it was her ears. They were just too sticky-outy. She smoothed her hair down over them, but she couldn't hide the fact that they stuck out farther than they should.

"Stop it," she ordered herself. She was twenty and gorgeous—she shouldn't be straining herself trying to find all her flaws. "You're twenty and gorgeous."

But suddenly, that changed. She almost screamed as she saw the thick dark shoulder length hair of the girl in the mirror disappear, leaving behind a familiar, short boyish cut that did nothing for her ears. Her rosy pink, model-esque cheekbones shrunk and almost withered providing her with an almost haunted look. The light in her eyes dulled, her lashes disappeared, and her lips shrunk. She no longer had any feminine quality about her face at all.

"What...?" she wondered breathlessly as she felt around her face. The familiar, yet now masculine face in the mirror, however, did not mimic the expression of horror she knew she had on her face. Instead, it smirked tiredly. Danni gasped and took a step back as the face popped out of the mirror, along with its T-shirted body.

"Danny!" Danni shrieked ran at the man who had just haunted her mirror. She threw her arms around him and grinned. "I haven't seen you in…"

"…ten years," he finished for her in a gruff, weathered voice with a smirk.

"Oh, Danny," she sighed happily, before pulling herself together.

"Please, don't mind the mess," she ordered as she turned from him and searched the drawers of her vanity for her makeup. "I was just getting ready to go out."

Danny frowned as he was moved from in front of the vanity and pushed by the closet. He watched as his feminine clone searched for something in the mess of girly toiletries, but decided not to comment. Instead, he tore his gaze away from her and looked around her room.

"It's a really nice place, here," he said to her. "Is this Greenwich—?"

"SoHo," she told him automatically. "How did you ever find me?"

"You're all over the tabloids," he explained with a shrug.

"So?" she said, as she began applying mascara with her face very close to the mirror. "They don't list my address for the public."

Danny opened his mouth to change the subject, but was surprised when she did it for him.

"Whatever," she went on. "Just tell me how you've _been_!"

"Eh, you know," he began half-heartedly, "just trying to make ends meet. What with mom and dad gone—"

"Gone?" she asked distractedly.

"Yeah. They're dead," he explained.

"What?" she said loudly, turning around to fully face him for the first time. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It's really not that big of a deal," he shrugged. "It was slow. You know, what with all their research, they were bound to run into _some_ radioactive material."

"And you?" she asked, returning her attention to her hair and the mirror.

"I'm fine," he said, turning away to look hat her enormous closet. "I make enough of a living patenting my parents' stuff. They never bothered copy-righting anything—too concerned with the final product. Anyway, I just patent and sell. They've made enough junk I don't have to bother looking for a job just yet. I'm not smart enough to invent anything new, though, so I'll have to find one soon."

"You sell them?" she asked. She put down her hairbrush and began spritzing her bangs with product as she smoothed them into place. "To who?"

"You actually _wear_ these?" Danny said as he dropped the five inch heel he had just finished gaping at in horror. "Oh, um… I sell to Axion Labs and the GIW."

"Oh, " Danni said noncommittally, not wanting to think about either company or the memories affiliated with them both.

"Well, anyways," Danny said, crossing his arms over his dirty white tee. "I didn't just drop by to talk about myself—"

"Which looks better?" Danni interrupted him. She turned to face him, holding up two different earrings to her ears.

"Um—ah—" Danny stuttered under the pressure, "they _both _look—"

"Pick!" his cousin all but shrieked.

"Okay, okay!" he gasped playfully. "I like the smaller one."

"Good, I think it matches better, too," she told him as she put it on. She smiled. "You men—you're all the same." Danny began to ask her just what she could _possibly _know about men, just as she continued, "I can't believe I thought any different before my marriage."

Danny's eyes boggled. "You're _married_?!"

"Was," Danni clarified nonchalantly in the mirror. "Divorced."

"What!?" Danny gasped, horrified by the figurative space between them. He had only just realized that he didn't know a thing about the girl in front of him. He had thought for sure that she had just been the same clone he always thought of when he looked back on the few memories they shared.

He was also very nervous about the fact that she didn't seem to mind at all. Danny felt himself growing irritated by the fact that she spoke to him like they had kept in touch for all those years and were just the best of friends. She didn't know anything about him, and she had no reason to pretend that she did.

"I thought you said you read the tabloids. My love life was all over them," she said.

Danny favored her with a cold glare. "I said I saw you on them. I didn't say I _read_ them," he said, still slightly stunned. "It's like I don't even know you anymore, Mrs.…?"

"Skylark," Danni said, still very relaxed. She pointed by his feet. "Can you pass me those shoes?"

"You mean as in…?"

When Danny didn't move to pick up her shoes, Danni huffed angrily. "Shiny Teeth, yes," she growled as she bent down to pick up the shoes for herself. She peeled off the flats she was wearing and slid on the heels as Danny bent down next to her.

"And you're divorced?" he asked dazedly.

"I already _told_ you that," Danni said, annoyed now. "We still date on and off…. I just didn't think marriage was right for me just yet."

"Of course…," Danny said weakly. "But why get hitched so early?"

"I dunno. I guess I just really hate being alone." He watched silently as she clipped the buckles of her shoes shut with a snap. "That, and Chip is one of the nicest guys I know. Plus he's handsome. And he's also generous. He's the one who got me my job. We just broke up—" she indicated the mess of movies and chocolates that decorated the floor "—but I'm sure he'll come around."

Danny didn't know what chocolates and chick flicks had to do with breaking up, but he saw the box of tissues next to the mess and assumed he didn't like it. "Did he hurt you?" he growled angrily.

"Of course not, Danny!" she gasped in exasperation. "I dumped _him_. You can't start being over-protective _now_—you barely even know me!"

"I guess you're right," he sighed.

Danni buckled the last buckle of her shoe and stood up. "How do I look?"

"Beautiful." Danny stood up next to her and smiled. "Kind of like Jazz. A little."

"Really?" she asked, looking in the mirror once more. "I know I must be the opposite of everything your wife stands for…."

"My wife?" Danny asked confusedly.

Danni had assumed that her "cousin" and his lovebird, Sam, had gotten together a long time ago. "Yeah," she said. "You could say I'm pretty superficial." She gestured at her vintage Givenchy dress and Missoni heels. "I work for MTV and I'm runner up America's Next Top Model. Sam must really hate me. But then again, she always has."

"Oh," Danny said quietly, like he'd been crushed. "You mean Sam?"

"Yeah," Danni went on, "you guys have to be married by now, right? You were always so _mushy_ together—"

"I haven't talked to Sam in five years," Danny told her bluntly. "She moved away with Tucker once they were old enough to be legally wed."

Danni gasped and leaned against the wall, almost faint with shock. "Oh my god, Danny, I'm so _sorry_!"

"Don't be," Danny said, shrugging. "I knew it was going to happen long before it did. And looking back, it really is ironic…."

Danni let her cousin trail off in memory. She frowned at the longing evident in his voice and his uncaring demeanor. She knew what he must be thinking about right then, but she didn't want to hear it. She had locked all the memories of her past self and "creator" away a long time ago.

"Like I said," Danny spoke up again. "I didn't come here to talk about_ my _problems. I need to tell you—"

"Oh my god!" Danni cried when she caught sight of her watch. "I'm going to be late!"

"Huh?" Danny gasped, thrown out of the moment. "For what?"

"You're coming," Danni decided. "You really need some fun." She paused as she wrinkled her nose at his clothes. "But not dressed like _that_ you don't."

She turned back to her closet and began to dig furiously.

"Danni, what—?"

"I think Chip might have left—oh! Here it is!" She pulled out a plastic covered, very expensive looking suit. "He's just a little shorter than you—but only an inch. It _should_ work."

She pressed the suit into Danny's arms and pushed him into the bathroom.

"Whoa, Danni, I don't think you understand," he said. "I just stopped by to warn you—"

"Change!" she ordered, slamming the door closed. "We're late!"

From inside the bathroom, Danny sighed. He figured that it would just be best to break the news to her lightly, and to do that, he would have to follow her around or else she would run away. But she was moving too fast for him to keep up.

He tore the plastic off of the hanger and pulled off the clothes. He had to admit, it _was_ a very nice suit.

_Only the best for Chip_, he thought sourly as he slid his skinny legs into the pants. Once he pulled the jacket of the suit onto his shoulders, he began adjusting. Chip's shoulders were smaller than his, and it was a little tight around the arms.

Once it was on, he stared at himself in the mirror. He looked tired, but then again, he always looked tired nowadays. And Danni hadn't noticed, so he assumed no one else would, either.

He marveled to himself just how much his little cousin had changed. She was pretty oblivious. She hadn't once stopped to ask him what he was even doing in her home. She hadn't even noticed the tiny drops of blood on the front of his soiled shirt to ask about where he had gotten them. _But_, he realized, _she has a good reason to be oblivious_. She wanted to forget her past because her present was so great.

"Hurry up, Danny!" she yelled, pounding on the door. "We're gonna be _late_!"

_She's really made something of herself, _he thought enviously, taking his time despite her efforts to rush him. She was almost as tall as he was—even taller when she was wearing heels—and she was really pretty—he hadn't lied about that. She seemed to have the perfect life.

It was just too bad he was going to have to destroy all that.

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks for reviewing!!


	14. Death and All His Friends

**Viva la Vida**

* * *

Time seemed to come to a stand-still as he paused, staring at the slim fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist that prevented him from leaving. He could have easily phased right through her grip, but, as he stared into her dark, purple eyes, he couldn't bring himself to ignore her command.

"Wait," she had said, and he found he could do nothing but obey. She immediately blushed and let go, like her actions had been a mistake, before she cleared her throat.

"Um," she went on quietly, "I mean, you never told me who you are."

Without her pulling it back, his arm fell uselessly to his side. He allowed himself to take a heavy, unnecessary breath as he shifted under her intense gaze. He let his eyes wander from hers to look around the attic of the abandoned house, and his thoughts once again reverted back to how the girl had found the mansion in the first place.

"I'm nobody," he finally told her, not expecting a reply and again he turned to leave.

"I have two eyes," she told him pointedly, and he turned once more to face her. "Not one."

She sighed in resignation when the his apprehensive expression melted into one of confusion, slightly frustrated that the boy didn't understand her reference to Homer. "I mean you _have_ to be _some_body," she said more seriously.

His confusion faded and he looked down at his palms.

"So who are you?" the girl pressed.

"I am…."

But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't force the words to his lips. He wanted so badly to tell her—to tell _anybody_, really—who he was, just how _great_ he used to be—but he didn't know how.

"Okay," the girl sighed, "we'll start with something simple."

He nodded at that. Simple would work.

"But you have to promise me," she told him forcefully, _"promise_ you won't leave. I want to help you._"_

He wasn't going to promise he wouldn't leave her. Who was this girl, anyway, to demand his presence? He did not know her. She had entered _his_ mansion, after all, and without his or his uncle's permission. But for some reason, he just couldn't quite bear to make the girl angry, so instead of bringing it up, he mouthed, "But_ why?_"

"I…," she began, but her voice cracked and she stopped. He could tell it wasn't something she wanted to talk about.

"I can't go back," she explained simply, and he didn't press her. He didn't see any reason to—her story couldn't have been interesting. "Anyway, the simple question," she reminded him. "How long ago did…?" She trailed off, gesturing at his appearance, by which he quickly assumed she meant she wanted to know his date of death. Humans didn't give off a ghostly aura, after all.

He made a small, guttural sound as he thought about it. Did he really want to tell her?

"A very long time," he finally told her.

"How long?"

She clearly wasn't going to let it go, so he just decided to out with it. "About eight centuries."

_…Eight centuries,_ _thirty-seven years, 352 days, and almost twenty three hours and counting, _he thought to himself wistfully.

Immortals almost always lost track of time after a lifetime of nothingness, but not him. He had lived, and he had lost. He had lost _everything _that, to him, had meant anything worth living for, so he accounted for almost every single minute that passed him by in dying hopes that, one day, he could turn back time to that exact moment. The very moment he had left her arms, left her when she needed him most….

"Wow," she half-exclaimed, pulling him out of a painful reverie. "That's a really long time."

He looked at her from out of the corner of his eye. "Really."

"But you speak like you're from the present. Would it be okay if I asked you how…. Oh!" she said, almost startling him when she raised her voice. "I forgot the most important question!"

"And what is that?" he asked in a bored tone, pretending like she hadn't almost been about to ask him the one question you're never supposed to ask anyone.

"Only what your name is," she said with a smile.

He stared at her blankly, but her question set his mind on fire. Why did she even care? "It is…" After all these years, was he really going to tell a complete stranger? "Daniel." There, it was done.

_It really wasn't that hard,_ he told himself.

"Daniel," she echoed, rolling the word around her mouth. "I like that name."

"Yours?" he asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"Huh?"

"What is your name?" he clarified exasperatedly. "I told you mine—"

"Sam," she cut him off, almost startled. She hadn't expected him to ask her name. "It's Sam. Sorry."

"Sam?" he said. "As in… _Samantha_?" _It's not possible_….

"Um, yeah," she laughed, a pretty tinkling sound.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. "Right. Of course."

"So, I was just…_wondering_—" The poor girl was driving herself crazy with wording exactly what she wanted to say without coming across as offensive. But, Daniel thought to himself with a smirk, no matter how she said it, it was still an offensive question. He was amused by her efforts—it was really quite entertaining. "I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I was just—um—concerned…how…."

"I was stabbed," he told her simply with a wave of his hand. But it didn't matter how lightly he said it—even as he thought about it, the scar on his back burned like his permanent wound had just been branded.

He looked at Samanth_—Sam_—to read her expression, and was surprised to find that he couldn't.

"Oh," she said quietly. "Did it—"

"Hurt?" He had fantasized of telling a human about his life so many times, that now that he was actually _doing_ it, he was surprised to find just how similar his imagination and reality were. He could almost predict the questions the girl would ask. "Yes. Obviously."

Sam was taken aback by how forward the ghost had become. So forward, that his quiet and almost shy first impression had faded from her mind, leaving in its stead a very different analysis of his demeanor. He now seemed almost _arrogant, _and that wasn't even taking into account his slight accent and the way he seemed to pronounce every letter.

"I'm sorry," she told him sincerely. "I didn't know."

He sighed as he turned away from her. "You didn't know," he repeated somberly. "No one knows."

"Danny—_Daniel,_" she corrected herself. "I told you, I'm not here to do anything but help you."

"Why _are_ you here?" he asked suddenly. "How did you even _get_ here? There's nothing here for miles."

She furrowed her eyebrows, but didn't falter. She wasn't as filled with self-pity as he was. "Well I guess since you told me—…I ran away."

"From where?" he asked unfeelingly as she sat down in the chair behind her. "Your home?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Parents are _so_ lame."

He could tell by her tone that there was something more, but again, he didn't press it. He had much better things to do. "You really should be going." He gingerly took her hand and pulled her to her feet. "It was a pleasure, miss—"

"I thought I told you," she said, ripping her hand out of his, suddenly very angry. "I'm not going back."

"But—"

"I'm tired," she said, completely ignoring him. "Where's the closest bedroom?" She peered out of the attic door and down the stretch of hallway. "Wait, don't tell me. I see one."

Daniel didn't even get the chance to say anything in reply before she pushed past him and began down the dark, mahogany lined hall.

He turned quickly to stop her. "But that's _my_—"

But she had already gone inside. He phased through the wall to find her throwing herself tiredly on his bed. "You shouldn't be here," he told her quietly, mentally urging her to heed his warning. But she paid no mind.

"Of course not," she said, but continued to pry apart the long since used sheets. "But here I am." She dug herself a comfortable spot between the satiny sheets and the downy duvette cover. Her eyes were already becoming heavy. "You can surely find yourself another bedroom to sleep in, right?"

"I don't need to sleep," he told her.

"Well, good," she replied, closing her eyes, not at all surprised.

"But I am going to keep you company."

He had expected her to protest his presence, but her reply was exactly the opposite.

"Then tell me a good story."

He sat in his favorite chair positioned in the far corner of the room. He was only keeping an eye out to make sure she wasn't found by his unforgiving uncle, and the last thing he was going to do was tell the girl a story.

But, as he looked upon her almost motionless form he again found himself unwilling to ignore her request. Centuries of suppressed memories seemed to suddenly replay before his eyes the more time he spent with her. So he waited until her breathing slowed significantly and he was more than sure that she was completely asleep. He was positive she couldn't hear him as he began to whisper to the moon shining outside his window, like he did when he used to spend his nights thinking of nothing but the life he lost.

"I used to rule the world…"

* * *

**A/N: **I'm really sorry if this makes no sense at all to you. And aw jeez. I just realized that between sparse updates and requests from non-reviewers, I stopped taking requests! So I went back and picked one out. _The Giver_, requested by Esme Phantom, is in the works. I've got a good idea of how I'm going to handle it, I just need to find my copy so I can pretend to write like Louis Lowery. But all the same, the more suggestions for crossovers I get, the more likely I'll be to know about what you're suggesting, so keep 'em coming!


	15. The Giver

**The Giver**

* * *

Danny stood, watching the Chief Elder on the stage with a feeling he would almost describe as shock. Almost.

Had he done something wrong? Had the Chief Elder made a mistake?

Danny was number thirteen. The Chief Elder had called out number eleven, who was his friend, Tucker, before making a small speech about the boy and announcing to the crowd his Assignment. The Chief Elder went on to call number twelve, Paulina, Danny's friend who had made a brief appearance in one of his dreams not too long ago. Danny had assumed that the Chief Elder would then call his number, but he hadn't. The Chief Elder instead called forward his other friend, Dash, number fourteen, and gave the muscled boy his Assignment.

Such mistakes were not allowed, so Danny immediately dismissed the absurd idea of the Chief Elder making a blunder in front of such a large audience. His face began to feel hot when he realized that if the Chief Elder hadn't made a mistake, it had to be his error. It must have been his fault the Chief Elder had skipped his number.

Danny's stomach began to churn with embarrassment when he looked at the crowd. They were shaking their heads in descent and concern, and around them a faint murmur began to rise in volume. Danny thought about all the past mistakes he had made, and wondered which offence was restricting him from receiving his Assignment.

When he was younger, he had yelled at Dash, but only in response to a shove from the larger boy. He had taken his sister's dolls to hide them last year, when he had been really angry with her. Five weeks ago, he had taken more apples at Snack than he should have. But of course, he thought, these actions didn't sum up to enough to hinder him from becoming a Fourteen, did they? Danny shifted under the stares of the audience as the Chief Elder called out the rest of the numbers.

The Ceremony of Fourteen was almost over, and Danny was sick with chagrin, but then something wonderful happened. The Chief Elder paused when the final Speech was over, and promptly apologized to the crowd.

"I am very sorry," he told them, "to have caused any concern, and I am very sorry to have caused you any anguish, Danny. This year, the Council of Elders has selected Danny for a very special position: the Receiver of Memory. The community has only one Receiver at a time, and we have decided it is time for the Receiver to train a successor."

Danny's discomfort immediately disappeared, and a new feeling, one of extreme happiness replaced it.

The Chief Elder went on to explain that ten years ago, a new Receiver had been selected, but the selection had been a terrible failure. After Danny was identified as a possible Receiver, the Elders watched him very carefully and made a unanimous decision to select him, despite the strict selection criteria. To begin with, the candidate for Receiver can be rejected if any of the Elders so much as dreams that he might not be the best selection. They told Danny that the Receiver also needs to possess intelligence, integrity, and courage, as well as the ability to acquire wisdom. Courage is especially important, because as the Receiver, Danny will experience real pain, something no one else in the community every experiences. (1)

Danny's joy disappeared. He stood still while he contemplated his ability to fulfill the role that had been designated for him. How had he even passed the requirements of the position? And had the Chief Elder said there would be _pain_?

But, snapping out of the moment, Danny stepped forward to the podium and accepted his assignment with a combination of excitement, joy, and fear.

He was to be the Receiver of Memory.

-

Danny woke to an upset stomach. Today was the day he would officially start his Assignment. He didn't know what he was going to be doing, and it made him feel sick. He ignored it, however, and once he was dressed in his nicest clothes, he ran down the stairs to find his parents sitting at the table.

"Danny!" his overly-enthusiastic adoptive father said. "There you are. We wanted to tell you how very proud of you we are."

"Very proud," his adoptive mother clarified with a smile.

"Thank you," Danny said and sat down next to them to eat.

Once he had finished his breakfast, he stood and headed towards the door.

"Thanks for breakfast," he called back to them. "I love you. Bye!"

"We love you too, Danny," his father yelled as the boy walked out the door. "Goodbye!"

Danny left his house with a confident smile. His mother and father loved him, and he knew they were proud of him.

When he reached the building in which the Giver lived, however, his smile faded. He remembered what the Chief Elder had said about there being unpleasant feelings, feelings that only one other person in the community had felt. But, he reasoned with himself, if an Elder could do it, he could do it, too. He wasn't going to give his parents any reason to be any less proud. So, pushing the self-doubt from his mind, he opened the front door and walked inside.

As he looked around, he noticed two things. The first was that it was very dark, and that there were no windows; the only light came from the small desk lamp on the large mahogany desk. The second was the man, tall, but frail, that sat calmly in the cushioned desk chair behind it. The small ray of light fell on his hands, which were clasped together on the desk contemplatively, and the reflective light made his dull grey eyes sparkle.

Danny gulped.

"Good morning, sir." He almost choked on his own words before he cleared his throat. "You're…?"

The old man seemed to almost smirk at Danny's nerves. "I am the Giver."

* * *

(1) This paragraph is a direct quote from Spark notes with few minor alterations. (Don't judge. I'm _not_ rereading this book.)

**A/N: **Even though it's way short, you have _no_ idea how hard it was to write this. It took about two months to complete because I never liked Lois Lowery. But hey, it's great practice, right?

Anyway, so much for me asking for suggestions because out of the five I got, I only knew two. I don't watch/read anime/manga/video games/or any other cartoons. Just regular sitcoms, comedies, and mindless reality tv. And Ugly Betty, which is, of course, drama. I don't have time to expose myself to much else. So, the two lucky winners were a) the continuation of Psych and b) x-men (the movies, obviously.) And I decided when I started this, that I wasn't going to write more than two chapters on a crossover, so unless I run out of ideas, that's how it's gonna stay. Sorry.


	16. X Men Movies

**-ADOPTED-**

by Adriannrod Svit-Kona Sama

* * *

**X-Men Movies**

The Last Stand After the Last Stand

* * *

"But I _can_ respect it," Vlad Masters calmly told the man sitting on the reclining chair opposite him. "I always respect those who have great game."

From across the table, the man's cold, blue eyes glistened. He smiled as he finally set down the game piece he had been twisting between his fingers. "Of course you _say _so. I practically have you on a silver platter," he said, looking around the room at his followers. "Check."

Vlad smirked at the marble board as he quickly positioned a rook in front of his king in order to protect it from his opponent's queen. "You would think so," he said cryptically. The man who thought to have him pinned in a corner obviously did not know about either his half dead state, or the power that had come with it. He thought Mr. Masters was just an ordinary, but very wealthy businessman. And Mr. Masters was not about to enlighten him with the truth.

"So you _will_ write the check, no question," Magneto told him as he moved his own rook away from a line of fire. "And in case you find yourself willing to compromise your life by _not _complying, I'm making sure to provide you with ample reinforcement."

"Such as…?"

"I have it from a reliable resource that you've been pining for one person, one _woman, _for twenty years, now," Magneto said, inspecting his fingernails as he waited for the man opposite him to make a move. "This is true, yes?"

Vlad's smirk immediately disappeared. "What have you done?" he asked, the underlying anxiety in his dark, threatening tone all too obvious.

"Nothing." It was Magneto's turn to smirk. "Yet."

"Fine!" Vlad growled, pushing the board away in an almost immature sort of response to his frustration. Several game pieces fell from the board and scattered on the table. "I'll do it. But let me make one thing clear: you _don't_ want to upset me." Vlad leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes against the burning red he knew was glowing from within them. Only several moments, reassurance that his eyes were the same dull blue they had been moments before, and a shaky sigh later, he opened them and told his opponent, "You may not think I'd be sympathetic to your cause, but really, I am. I just want to help."

"_You_? Sympathetic to my cause?" Magneto suddenly laughed. "You hear that, my boy? This homo sapien is _sympathetic _to our cause!"

Pyro, who had been leaning against the wall the entire time, pushed off the wall with his back and uncrossed his arms. He smirked at Vlad cockily, but didn't say anything.

"No," Vlad told them both. "I assure you, I am truly very able to sympathize. I understand what it means to be different—to hold on to secrets for a long period of time."

"Then negotiate with me," Magneto ordered, his skepticism made very clear by his tone. "I want that boy destroyed so there _are_ no more 'cures.' My plan is to buy that child out of that school. And if that doesn't work, the money can fund a more destructive force. If my friend won't sell me the boy, I'll advance upon his school until he'll be happy to _give_ him to me."

"Not only will I provide you with financial support," Vlad said thoughtfully, "I feel I can improve upon that plan."

"Oh?"

"You see, I happen to know a certain someone who can help your revolution," he said, leaning back in his chair. "A family friend of mine has this son…."

Mr. Masters gave Magneto a short, but detailed description of Danny Fenton before telling the man that, "the boy woke up one day to find he was a mutant of unquestionable power."

"You _want_ this boy," Vlad told Magneto forcefully. "He is able to get past anyone guarding the school—he can be trained to systematically take it down from the inside." Vlad suddenly stood up and brushed off his suit. "Unfortunately, he likes humans, but I'm sure once I talk to him, I can get him to see it your way."

Magneto narrowed his eyes at the man. "See it my way?" he asked suspiciously. "No matter how _sympathetic_ to my cause you are, _you're_ still human. Why on Earth would you want anyone to see it 'my way?'"

"Like you said, to not comply with you would be to compromise my life and to hurt the one I hold most dear," Vlad explained with a knowing smile. "It would seem I have no choice." And without waiting for Magneto to respond, he turned and began walking to find his wallet. "Now I'll write you that first check, shall I?"

Magneto stood up and smiled at the man's back as the business professional walked slowly out of the room. He then turned back to his ward.

"And that's how you checkmate someone," he told Pyro with a small smile. But little did he know, Mr. Masters was thinking the very same thing.

* * *

**Several Months Later:**

"Not even, like, fifty cents for the vending machine?" the boy begged, pleading with his puppy-dog blue eyes, only to be pushed out of the way again.

"I told you five times, kid," the burly bartender growled. "No! Now get out—this is a bar, not the mall."

"But—" The bartender immediately jerked forward, towards the boy, his intentions very clear, and the kid almost tripped backwards. "Alright! Alright, I'm leaving."

As soon as he was outside, the juvenile immediately began to shiver. He only had on a thin cotton tee and a pair of jeans and it was the middle of winter.

The boy rubbed his arms in an attempt to create friction, but it did nothing. He looked longingly through the windows of the city at the many people eating what looked like only the most delicious food. The pain on the side of his head was throbbing heavily, he didn't know where he was, he didn't have a shelter, and he didn't have food. Suffice to say, he was a little more than just slightly distraught.

To his left, he noticed a vendor selling ears of corn by the crosswalk. He knew it was wrong to steal—his mother had beaten _that_ into his head a long time ago—but he was not above taking food when starvation and lack of money was involved. Especially when said food would probably rot before someone actually bought it.

_Drastic times call for drastic measures, _he reassured himself confidently as he prepared to steal the smallest cob.

"No money, no food," a deep voice growled, and Danny looked up from the buttery ears of corn to see the vendor staring him down.

Danny grinned, ashamed. "Just looking."

The vendor grunted in dubious acknowledgement before he returned his attention to his newspaper.

_Now or never,_ the dark haired boy thought to himself. He looked away as he slipped his hand through the cool metal and felt for a steaming hot cob of corn. When he had it, he pulled away, making sure to keep his hand, and the corn in his tight grip, completely invisible.

"If you're not buying, then scram!" the vendor finally shouted, looking up from his newspaper in exasperation. "This ain't no place for a kid like you to loiter."

"Don't need to tell me twice!" the kid gasped, his voice cracking, and his nervousness betrayed. He spun on his heels and ran down the block. When he decided he was far enough away that the corn vendor could no longer catch him, he noticed his grumbling stomach. He patted it like an old friend, and decided to find a place to rest so he could better enjoy his stolen prize. Spotting the opening of an alleyway, he blindly turned into the corner—

And the rock hard abs of scary looking man. The corn flew from the boy's hands into the snow and the boy gasped, clearly pained.

"You stole that, didn't you?" the man said, and the disheartened kid slowly looked up from his fallen food into the man's boring black eyes.

"Um…no—"

"I've been around enough kids to know when they're lying," the man said, uncrossing his arms to lift an almost finished cigarette to his mouth.

"Wow…you don't really strike me as a kid-friendly type of guy," the boy replied bluntly as he sadly watched the man toss the cigarette butt on the ground, on top of his corn.

"And I'm not," the man said emotionlessly. "Now get out of my sight before I call the police."

It killed the boy to do it, but even though he wasn't above brushing off the ashes and eating the corn off of the ground, he knew it wouldn't be enough to satisfy his stomach for more than a night.

"Um," he began hesitantly, with his hands in his pockets, and the older man's frown lines instantly deepened. "Well, I don't mean to—"

"I don't have any money," the man said frankly. "I thought I told you to get out."

The boy frowned, now, irritated and unafraid. "I _am_ out," he said, gesturing wildly around to point out the fact that they were both outside. "And you don't own the sidewalks."

"Listen kid," the man said, standing tall—a good head or two taller than the boy, "you don't want to screw around with me." It was then that the boy saw the huge truck parked way behind the man in the back alley. "You do and—hey! Where the hell are you—?"

By the time he even finished his sentence, the boy dodged around the man and bolted to his truck.

"Oh no," the man growled, swiftly walking towards it. "No, no, no, no, _no_."

But the boy was already inside, scavenging for food and telling himself that it was definitely more okay to steal from a creep than from a street vendor.

"Way less against the law, right?" the boy whispered to himself as she shifted through old papers and trash. But there was no food. He couldn't find any, not in the glove compartment or the side pocket of the shotgun door.

"You're looking in the wrong place," the man finally said, and the teen looked up to see the man digging under a pile of trash under the driver's seat. The boy almost gasped in surprise when the man tossed a bag of Turkey Jerky at him.

The boy caught the bag, but hesitated to open it. "Why the sudden change of heart?" he asked suspiciously.

"No reason," the man said with a smirk. "You just reminded me of someone I used to know."

The kid shrugged, figuring it was a good enough reason as any, and he ripped the bag open and began shoving fistfuls of the stuff into his mouth. "What was his name?"

"Hey!" the man growled. "Leave some for me. That's my dinner, too, you know, for the road. And not his—it's _her_ name. And her name is Rouge."

The boy set down the bag of jerky, but not before taking one more huge handful. "Oh great, I remind you of a girl," he said with his mouth full of jerky as he rolled his eyes. "Like I haven't heard _that_ a thousand times." For some odd reason, the strong-looking older man didn't seem to scare him like he should. So instead of running away, he hopped into the shotgun seat. "Rouge. What a weird name. So where're you headed?"

"Hey!" the man cried. "Get the hell out of my car! Don't you have anywhere to be?"

"No."

There was a moment when the man closed his eyes in resignation. "Where's home?" he asked finally, pulling himself into the driver's seat.

"Um…," the boy said looking around. "You know, anywhere but here would be nice."

"Buckle up," the man ordered. "I'm taking you back to your parents."

The kid buckled his seat belt, and the older man began pulling out of the alley. As soon as they were on the road, the boy asked, "So where are we?"

"You don't know where you are?" the older man asked. "How the hell'd you even get here?"

"I ran," the boy explained, reaching under himself to find the bag of jerky. "You know, away."

"Huh," the man said. "You do sound just like her…. I wonder—is there any reason why you ran?"

The boy's teeth clenched audibly shut, and he looked away. The man looked away from the road for a brief second to study the kid. He had long black hair, and cool blue eyes. He was scrawny, with just enough muscle tone to not pass off as a total wimp, and he looked very tired. The bags under his eyes were a dead giveaway to the stress he had to be dealing with. Not to mention the huge lump on the side of his head where he must have fallen, or something. "Fine, don't tell me," the man finally said, looking away from him, back at the road. "You got a name?"

The kid didn't look away from the window. "Danny."

"I'm Logan," he said, and for a while, those were the last words spoken. As Logan contemplated just dropping the kid off at the nearest Juvie home, Danny's eyes grew heavy.

As he stared, unblinking, at the passing scenery, his eyes slowly closed, and he succumbed to the dark heaviness that was weighing down his eyelids. And, like every time he slept since he had woken up with no memory, unwanted nightmares and memories soon played before his eyes.

_"No!" a familiar voice shouted, and all Danny could feel was protection. "Get away from my son!"_

_"Leave my boy alone!" a woman screamed, and even though she was shouting, the voice reminded him of warmth._

_A flash of vision let him see a heavyset middle-aged man with a gun, standing sure-footed besides a shorter, and much thinner woman. The only thing that struck Danny as odd was the fact that they were both clad in spandex._

_"No, wait!" Danny suddenly screamed. He didn't know why, and he didn't even know how, as his throat was busy keeping down a sob, but it seemed like something said before. It was like he was playing a role in a play he knew by heart, but couldn't understand. "Let go of her!"_

_Another flash of vision showed a red headed girl, who couldn't have been much older than him, being forced back by a full grown man. He could barely see their faces, but he could clearly hear shouts and screams. But even more clear to him than noise, however, was the feelings. He could feel terror, anger, and confusion all at the same time. And it hurt his stomach._

_And there was a man. He couldn't see much of his face as tears blurred his vision, but the man's voice was sure and clear. "You have to wake up."_

_Confusion dominated everything, now. "What?" Danny managed to choke out. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see something flash. He spun to see a light reflecting off a metal pole, which was in the hands of yet another face he didn't know._

_"You have to wake up, kid," the voice ordered again, and the pole was swung backwards, away from him as the person holding it prepared to strike._

_Even though it was all in slow motion, Danny didn't have the time to react. He felt slow, and heavy_—_like he was just waiting to be hit. The room began to spin before his eyes, and it was all he could do to keep them open. He was getting tunnel vision, and everything but the metal pole flying towards his head became blurred and distorted._

"Get up, Danny!" the voice yelled and Danny was pulled forcefully back into reality. "Stop it, already!"

Danny was jerked awake, and his eyes flew open. "Where—?" he wondered, before the spots cleared from his eyes and he could see his surroundings.

"Damn it," Logan, who was hovering above him, growled. "Just about gave me a fuggin' heart attack."

Danny blinked at the man tiredly before looking out the window. "Where are we?" he mumbled with a yawn.

Logan sighed heavily. "When you started screaming and I couldn't get you up, I didn't know where else to take you," he explained, looking straight ahead at the large iron gate.

"I was _what_—?"

"I haven't been here in years," Logan said in awe as he looked around through the window, cutting him off. "I barely know these people anymore."

"Where are we?" Danny repeated again.

"You know what?" Logan said after the gates opened. "You're probably the first human to ever pass through these gates."

* * *

"And he _what_?" Storm asked him aggressively. "You're telling me you just picked the kid up off the streets?"

"You heard me," Logan grunted as he took a bite of an apple he had stolen from the fridge.

"Logan," Storm said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "If what you told me was true—even if he really had a mental-breakdown, I don't know why you thought we could help."

"Because," Logan said. "I thought someone here could read his mind. You know, get the answers out of him."

Storm gaped. "This is a school!" she gasped. "Not a psych ward."

"Really?" Logan asked, turning to look at the mess kids in the back of the kitchen who were all watching television. One was hugging her knees and rocking back and forth, another was pulling the threads out of the carpet and melting them between his fingers, and another was telekinetically pulling another girl's hair. "That doesn't look crazy to you at all."

Storm rolled her eyes. "I just can't believe you did this, Logan," she said. "The boy is a human." When Logan gave her no response, she added, "I'll go talk to the professor and see what he wants to do."

Logan stopped chewing and suddenly swallowed. "The professor?" he echoed, looking at Storm.

"Oh!" she said, biting her lip. "I thought you knew!" Logan gave her a quizzical look.

"Logan," she said slowly, "Professor Xavier is alive."

The apple fell from Logan's hands to the ground with a dull thud and, without thinking about the teenager he had left on the couch in the front hall, he bolted to find the man he had watched die.

* * *

**A/N: **I know what you're thinking. It probably makes no sense, right? The second installment will make things much clearer, but it'll take me a lot longer to write. Also, keep in mind that this is just an exerpt from an entire plot. Anyways, thanks so much to XTakaX for suggesting this crossover. I didn't think it would actually be this inspiring cause I didn't like the movies that much, but once I sat down to write it, man, it was already written. I mean, Vlad and Magneto even _look_ the same, let alone the fact that they both like chess! And just in case I didn't make it clear, Danny has amnesia and it's set way after the third X movie.

Oh and another little PS: I can't thank you guys enough! I now have enough suggestions to keep me going for like another year! Amazing. X's and O's to you guys and I hope everyone like how each one turns out.


	17. X Men Movies Part Two

**-ADOPTED-**

by Adriannrod Svit-Kona Sama

* * *

**X-Men Movies**

The Last Stand After the Last Stand

* * *

"After all these years," the professor said into the window before turning around to finally face Logan, "I didn't think you were coming back."

Logan shrugged. "It's nice to see you again," he said with a grin. "We missed you."

The professor smiled. "I know you're dying to find out how I'm here," he said. "And for once, I'm not able to provide you with an answer." Logan frowned. "I just woke up in the hospital like this," the Xavier went on, looking down at his hands. "Drastically weakened and barely alive, but alive all the same." Logan opened his mouth to reply, but the professor cut him off. "But you're not here to talk about me. Please, tell me why you came."

"I—" Logan hesitated. "You can't tell?"

The professor smiled sadly. "Unfortunately, no," he said. "I am no longer half of what I used to be."

"What?" Logan asked sharply.

Storm place a hand on the professor's shoulder comfortingly. "He lost most of his abilities when he…returned," she explained hesitantly.

Xavier nodded. "I can still read thoughts, but only through touch."

"So…you only know what people're thinkin' when you touch them."

The professor nodded again, but this time, he didn't answer.

"Damn. Well, I'm here because—well…."

"Were you out on the streets again?"

Logan looked up at the professor. "How did you know?"

Charles Xavier smiled. "I've had enough practice that I rarely need telekinesis to read minds. Your face says everything."

Logan grunted, but decided not to comment. Instead, he continued his story. "Well, there's this kid…. I don't know how to explain it. I couldn't turn him down when he climbed into my truck. He told me he's a runaway, but he refused to give me anything useful to work with. It was almost like…Rouge. How is she by the way?" he asked, before shaking his head. "Wait, never mind. Let me finish. So I decide to take him to a shelter up in Woodshire—told him I was just driving up to the next town—and he falls asleep. I…. He started screaming…there was this terrible echo that hurt my ears. It was weird. I've never felt that way around anyone—like something was completely wrong. It was like all my instincts were against him."

He paused to find Storm and Xavier staring at him, both very intrigued. "It got worse. He was yelling something about his mother or something and all of a sudden, the van stopped."

"Stopped how?" Xavier wondered when Logan paused again.

"Stopped like, I was pressing the gas and the engine was burning, but we weren't moving," Logan close his eyes as he tried to recall exactly what had happened. "I tried to wake him up, but he only yelled louder, and somehow he burned me. I didn't see how, I just know that my palms stung a little when I tried to stop him from punching and kicking at me.

I had no choice but to bring him here once we started moving again. I didn't know what to do."

"Is he still in this state?"

Logan sighed. "No. I yelled at him to wake up the whole way here, but he only stopped screaming when we reached the gates."

"Interesting…," Professor Xavier whispered. "May I… see him?"

"Sure," Logan said, pointing behind him at the door. "Kid's sitting right out there, in the front hall."

Logan was shocked when Storm physically wheeled the professor out into the hall. The professor clearly hadn't been lying when he had said his abilities had vanished, but Logan decided not to comment and instead followed his two old friends through the door.

The boy was right outside, leaning back deep into the couch. It wasn't until Logan was within five feet of the boy that he noticed the kid's eyes were closed and he was breathing slowly.

"He's asleep," he said, and the professor nodded.

They stood, staring at the boy, contemplating what to do.

"Well," Logan finally began, "aren't you going to read his mind?"

The professor frowned for several moments. "No," he said. "I should wait for his permission."

"But we don't know who the hell he is!" Logan growled. "He could be anybody." But the professor still didn't move. Logan turned to him with an almost expectant glare. "You read _my_ mind when I first came."

Xavier looked from Logan to the sleeping teenager. "Right," he sighed. "You're right."

He extended one shaky arm towards the black haired boy, and finally rested his hand on the boy's forehead.

Immediately he gasped and closed his eyes. Storm and Logan both moved closer to him, surprised by his reaction to the boy's thoughts. Just as quickly as he closed them, the professor opened them again and moved away.

"What did you see?" Storm immediately asked.

Professor Xavier swallowed hard. "I don't know…," he said. "But…he's back."

Both Storm and Logan frowned.

"He's back," Xavier repeated slowly. "Erik's back."

* * *

Logan slammed his fist on the counter. "I thought he was dead!"

Storm gave a young boy a gentle shove in the direction of his room. "Go brush your teeth," she told him before giving her attention to Logan. "I don't understand why you're angry. _You're_ the one who left. None of us were able to contact you."

Her friend waved his hand carelessly through the air. "No, not the professor. _Magneto_."

"Oh," Storm replied. "I don't think he died in the first place. He was hit by the government's army with that 'cure.'"

"I still can't believe he's alive," Logan said, rolling his eyes. "Now not only is he alive, he can still control metal!"

"Well, listen," Storm told him. "At least we know that the boy is not working with him."

"We don't know for sure."

"If what the Professor said was the truth," she said, "why would he work for someone who hit him on the side of the head with a huge metal pole?"

Logan shrugged. "Beats me."

Storm smiled. "I think you're just afraid to see the connection."

"What connection?"

"He's got to be some kind of mutant," she said, "_and_ the professor couldn't read his mind, which means that he's lost his memory. Kind of like you, no?"

"That's no connection," Logan grunted, looking across the room at Danny, who was still asleep on the couch. "I can't believe you're comparing me to that kid." He smiled. "If I was him, my head wouldn't need those ugly bandages."

Storm chuckled and followed his gaze. "True." She looked down at her watch. "It's nearly midnight. Would you mind carrying him? We've only got one spare; you're going to have to split the room."

"Great," Logan rolled his eyes.

* * *

**10:23 AM The Next Day:**

Vlad Masters stepped out of his limousine and immediately straightened his jacket. He turned his back to the menacing metal gates to face the large, brick building ahead.

"I cannot believe you lost the boy," he said into the receiver of his Bluetooth.

"_I'm sorry—you never let me know what it was exactly that he could do. I had nothing to prepare for when we kidnapped him_," the man on the other end replied in an annoyed tone.

"Yes, well, I'll have to show you how it's done, won't I?"

And with that, he took the device off of his ear and slid it into his pocket. It would have been easier, he decided, to let Erik Lehnsherr know exactly what the boy could do, but in the end, he knew that revealing the boy's secret would mean revealing his own. And, he realized, maybe it would even be better this way. He would knock on the door and tell the owner of the school that Daniel was his long lost son. It was that simple. No matter how much Daniel kicked or screamed, unless he wanted to reveal himself, the school would have to hand him over. He would then either offer to buy off or steal the other boy that Erik wanted and get the annoying mutation of a man out of his hair for good.

_Yes,_ Vlad nodded to himself, _that's exactly what I'll do. _

He stood at the doorstep and, with one last tightening of his tie, he rang the doorbell.

Several tense moments passed before the large door finally opened. Vlad's jaw dropped when he recognized the scrawny figure standing in the doorway.

"Um, sorry," the answerer of the door said with a confused look on his face.

Vlad couldn't answer, for Daniel was standing in front of him with a barely concealed inky looking bruise that snaked around from the back of his head to his temple. _Daniel_ was standing in front of him, without any apparent intention of hostility.

"I don't actually live here," he went on, "but no one was here and you rang the bell. Hey," he stopped suddenly. "You look kind of familiar. Do I know you?"

* * *

**A/N:** Oh goody, a back to back. I don't feel like this installment really added anything, but I just wanted to let you all know I'm still here. Just…occupied by school. Sorry for this sad excuse of a second installment, but I just wasn't able to insert any action…maybe one day I'll make it up to you by writing more…or maybe you'll just have to wait until someone adopts it. I would actually really love to see this one adopted.

Anyway, thanks so much for reviewing! Loved all the feedback, especially on this last chapter. Oh, and sorry, I don't know what Tenth Kingdom is, either!


	18. Reality TV Part Two

**Reality TV**

Part Two

* * *

"'Scuse me!" Danni's shrill voice sliced through the noisy atmosphere. "Coming through!" She shoved her way through the line of people. When Danni finally found a small vacant spot in front of the bouncer guarded doors, she paused and turned, looking for her "cousin." "Danny? Where'd you—" She spotted him easily; he was taller than most everyone in line. He was looking around nervously when Danni grabbed his hand.

"There you are," she said. "Come on, we're rolling soon."

Danny wordlessly followed his cousin to the vacant space in front of the club doors, clueless about what was going on. He was startled when Danielle grabbed his shoulders and pushed him an inch or two to the right. "Stay there," she ordered as she began smoothing her hair and adjusting the straps of her dress.

"Danni, what…," Danny began with a confused expression on his face as he watched her preen, but decided not to continue his train of thought. Until he saw what she was holding. "Is that a microphone?" It was then that he noticed a man with a large camera hoisted on his right shoulder standing only feet away. "Oh, no. No."

His cousin turned to him with a smile. "Ready?" she asked.

Danny looked from the camera to her. _"No_!_"_

"Relax. No one watches this segment anyway," she assured him before she cleared her throat and looked towards the cameraman with a nod.

The camera man nodded back. "Rolling in five…four…."

Danny made a move to leave, but his cousin caught his wrist in a tight grip. He began to almost panic. He so did not want to be caught on television.

"Danni, I don't want to be on—"

"Two…One…."

"Hey, there!" Danielle had to raise her voice to be heard, even with the microphone. "This is Danielle with the crew of MTV reporting live from the outside of one of New York's _hottest_ clubs. This man here," she continued, raising hers and Danny's intertwined hands, "is Danny Fenton from Amity Park, Illinois. We're standing in the entrance of Bar 86, and, as you can see, there's a huge line to get in. Danny, can you tell us anything about Bar 86?"

Danny blinked stupidly as Danni thrusted the microphone into his face. As the camera zoomed in on his expression, he stared into his cousins eyes, silently asking why she would trick him into speaking on national television. She stared pleadingly back at him. _Bullshit it_, her eyes begged. _Just say something._

Danny rubbed the back of his neck before leaning forward and mumbling into the microphone. "Um…. It's just my favorite place to… hang out."

Danni refrained from rolling her eyes and smiled politely at the camera. "Thank you, Danny, I'm sure everyone here would agree." The camera man zoomed in on the people waiting impatiently in line.

"And that's a wrap," the man nodded before shutting down his camera and capping the lens. Danni sighed with relief.

"Thanks Danny. And thank god it was only a short segment," she told her cousin. "Normally they're longer, but MTV's trying out this stupid countdown on the latest and coolest clubs. Can you believe this is supposed to be number one?"

Danny stared at her in disbelief. Who was the girl standing in front of him?

Danni didn't seem to notice her cousin's hesitation. Instead she turned to the doors. "Come on," she said, giving his hand a tight squeeze before letting go. "My roommate's already inside."

Danny did not want to follow her in. He moved to leave, but his cousin caught his arm again and tugged him towards the club.

"Danielle, seriously…. I have to—"

"It'll be fun, I promise!" She flashed a smile at the bouncer, who flashed a smile back and opened the door for her and her cousin.

Angry shouts sounded from behind them, protesting the fact that they had jumped the whole line. Danni shoved her male counterpart inside, and Danny instantly covered his ears. The music was pounding and the lights were rhythmically flashing. Danni directed him to the stairs. "Up there," she ordered. "VIP room."

Danny could barely believe what he was allowing Danni to do. They reached the top, and as soon as he entered the quieter, but much classier room upstairs, all eyes were on him. He was being stared at, and with a gulp, Danny realized that he wasn't receiving the good kind of stares. The women and men in the room were sizing him up. He could practically see what they were thinking. _Who the hell is in Danni's arms?_

"Danielle," Danny began, making a clear decision in his mind to stop this once and for all. He was going to tell her what she needed to know and get back to his own life. Danni turned to give him a dazzling smile, and with a sinking heart, he realized he was going to hate himself for being the one to make that smile fade.

"Look, I came here for a reason." The corners of her mouth twitched downward, just as Danny had predicted, and he grabbed her shoulders. "Is there somewhere private we can talk?"

Danni's smile disappeared completely. "Sure…. But Danny, I—"

"Over here." Danny had found a back room without her help and was suddenly dragging her with him. He closed the door behind them, still ignoring the stares boring into his back.

"Danielle," he sighed, looking away. "I told you I had some bad news, didn't I?"

"You did?" his cousin looked at him strangely. "What's this about?"

Danny sighed again. "It's about… you. Danni, the feds have finally cracked down on Vlad. They know—well, really, they only _suspect_ that he's been conducting illegal experiments. It's not public knowledge yet—I'm sure he's paid a fortune to keep this quiet—but I know because everyone in the field is being searched. The GIW has been through Fentonworks at least ten times to make sure everything I'm doing is legal."

"You mean everyone who's a… ghost hunter… is being investigated?" It had been a long time since Danni had even thought about her past—or even about what she was. She had long since promised herself she would live out her life as if she was just a regular human girl.

Danny nodded. "Yeah. They suspect what Vlad's done and they're trying to find all evidence of his experiments so they can bring him to court. I mean, without evidence, they have no case."

"Danny, I don't really see what this has to do with—"

"It has everything to do with you! Don't you get it? Vlad's trying to destroy any traces of his experiments he can find. He's been trying to find you for the past year," he added frankly.

Danni shook her head. "But… this can't happen. Not now, when I finally have my own life!"

Danny gave her a meaningful look. "I'm sorry…. I also wanted to tell you that I…wasn't able to stop him from almost hurting you. He somehow sent you a basket of cookies some time ago and… I think someone you were rooming with must have eaten them…. They were poisoned."

Danni gasped, and a pang of guilt hit her hard. If only she had known—her old roommate had died because of her. Tears formed in her eyes and she shook her head. She sat on a plastic chair in the corner of the storage room to stop the dizziness from clouding her mind.

"I wish I could help you," Danny sighed, dropping his face into his wide palms.

His cousin suddenly looked up. "Why can't you?"

The twenty four year old gave her a sad look. "I'm going through some tough times, Danielle…. I haven't gone…you know…for years."

"What?" She was shocked. "But what about Amity Park? What about the great Danny Phantom?"

"I haven't had a problem," Danny told her truthfully. "Valerie's a good ghost hunter. Ever since my parents passed, I just…. I'm sorry."

"But I can't—!" Danni stopped herself when she realized her voice had risen at least several octaves. "I can't do anything about it by myself. Why would you tell me about this if you weren't planning on helping me?"

"I'm sorry," Danny repeated both coldly and sincerely. "I'm… sorry."

He didn't want her to know the reason he was so reluctant to relive his past, to become Danny Phantom once more. That deal he had struck with Vlad….

When Sam had moved away with Tucker, he was so angry he had planned to track them down and break them up. But then his parents had become sick, and he knew he couldn't leave their side. Jazz wasn't returning from wherever she went, and he was the only one who could take care of them. When they died, he couldn't bring himself to continue being the hero he was. He never went ghost again.

Deep down, he knew that his parent's radiation poisoning hadn't been an accident, but it was so much easier to tell himself that it was. His sister had gone, his friends had eloped; he no longer had any direction in his life. It was inevitable. He no longer knew what to do, so he really had no choice but to listen to Vlad. He remembered his "uncle's" smooth, confident voice telling him to forget his friends and his sister. To stay in Amity Park, work for and sell Fentonworks to Axion Labs. To patent his parent's weapons under his company's name.

Danny really had nothing else to do. He no longer wanted to fight ghosts. Except for Sam, Jazz, and Tucker, the only living person he really cared about anymore was his clone, and if Vlad got his way, she didn't have too long until she reached her expiration date.

"Just lay low," he told her. He frowned at the growing enthusiasm in her expression.

"Danny, I haven't gone ghost for a long time, either," she began, "but the two of us together—we'd be unstoppable!"

"No," he said weakly. "No. You don't understand; I can't fight Vlad. You can do whatever you want…. I just wanted to give you a heads up before—"

Suddenly the ground shook, startling both cousins.

"What was—" Danni began, but was interrupted by a deafening explosion from the floor below. The tiles underneath them shook even more until a thin crack snaked its way through the stone tiles. The temperature rose exponentially, and the crack grew in size. It wasn't long before it passed under their feet and touched the opposite wall. Another loud explosion sounded from below, and Danny winced when his cousin's shriek joined the shouts and screams of everyone in the building. The crack grew and grew until the floor no longer supported itself. The tiles began to fall.

Surprisingly, it still came naturally to Danny; he dove for his younger cousin and together they fell when the floor underneath them gave way. Danni closed her eyes, expecting to be squished between the first floor and her male counterpart, but the impact never came. When she opened her eyes, all she saw was rock and dirt. The familiar sensation of passing through solid objects washed through her body and mind. And as soon as it came, it left, and they were soon on their knees above ground, just outside the crumbling city building.

Danni and her cousin gasped in unison when they sensed the cause of the explosion. A large, unfamiliar ghost was standing just outside the now open doors with a grin plastered on its face. Danni somehow knew it was making sure Danni Skylark didn't escape.

Danny looked between his terrified cousin and the ghost, debating what action to take. Finally, he made his decision.

His eyes narrowed. "I haven't done this in forever…." A flash of bright light left in its wake an ex hero looking expectantly at his cousin. He offered Danni his hand. "You gonna fight with me, or what?"

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks for reviewing, everyone! I actually liked this one and I really hope you guys do too. Please tell me what you think!


	19. Psych Part Two

**Psych**

Part Two

* * *

While his best friend was cruising on his way to Florida at about three thousand miles in the sky, Shawn was stuck being scolded by the SBPD's very own senior detective.

"I cannot believe you used the PD's facilities to make up for your childhood lack of story time, Spencer!" Lassiter's voice increased in volume, and everyone else present tried their hardest to pretend like they weren't eavesdropping. Shawn opened his mouth to stand up for himself, but Lassiter sliced the air with his right hand as he said, "_No_, I won't let you talk your way out of this one. I'm taking it to the chief. Don't think I hadn't noticed that you wrinkled my papers—you were reading them, weren't you? You _always_ involve yourself in my cases!"

Detective Lassiter grabbed his wrinkled case files off of his desk and began making his way to the chief's office.

"No, wait—I can explain—it's Gus' fault, he—" Shawn sputtered, but Lassiter had already opened the glass door.

Chief inspector Vick looked up from her desk. "May I help you?"

"Yes," Lassiter growled furiously. "It's Spencer again. Yesterday night he stayed after hours and rifled through my desk until he found the files for the case you just assigned me. Going through confidential material is illegal, chief, you have to do something about this!"

The chief frowned just as Shawn made it to the door.

"I can explain! I can explain, I swear!" he gasped breathlessly. "Gus wanted me to tell the story about that girl who jumped out the window, and as I was telling it, I got this weird psychic feeling that a case assigned to Lassy, here, was really meant for—"

"Save it," Vick sighed, obviously tired of the two detectives' constant bickering. She looked to her senior detective. "Was this the case with the mentally unstable woman?" When Lassiter nodded in affirmation, she looked between both detectives exasperatedly. "You two are going to stop these petty fights, starting now. Here's what I'm going to do: I am reassigning Junior Detective O'Hara her own, separate case." She paused, and Lassiter gasped, hurt that the chief would take away his junior detective. Who was he to work with now? "Detective Lassiter—before you ask who you are to work with," Chief Inspector Vick went on, "just for this specific case, your new junior detective will temporarily be Junior _Psychic _Detective Spencer. You two will work on this case _together_, do I make myself clear? I am _done_ with you two constantly snapping at each other all the time."

Both men were speechless.

"Good day, both of you," the chief said, looking back down at her paperwork and motioning for them to leave.

----

It was late at night, and Senior Detective Lassiter was leaning on the bar counter next to his beer, his face covered by his hands.

"…And then he said, 'do you want me to have to turn you in?'" Shawn had been talking for an entire half hour. "And I said, 'Dad, _please_. That is no way to teach a kid a lesson.' Well, let me tell you, after that, he was not very happy—"

"Spencer," Lassiter said, drawing his head slowly out of his hands. _"Please. _Please just stop talking. I can't take it any more._"_

Spencer's mouth snapped shut and he donned a hurt expression. When Lassiter caught sight of this, he rolled his eyes. Looking around, he noted that the bartender wasn't within hearing distance, as he was fixing a light bulb that had just broken, so there was no one around to eavesdrop. "Fine. Let's go over the case, then. I know you read the files. You got any leads?"

Shawn became serious. "Just that the mentally unstable woman isn't mentally unstable."

"What?" Lassiter snapped. "Of course she's unstable. She claimed _ghosts_ killed her ch—" Lassiter stopped himself and looked his new temporary partner over. "Oh, god. Why am I saying this to you? You're a freaking psychic detective—and a fake, at that."

Shawn huffed. "Oh, come on. It's not just that—I mean this girl's got two kids who drowned in the bathtub. We don't know that it wasn't an accident!" the younger detective said, taking a swig of his drink. "Her friends described her as perfectly sane. You aren't just sane one minute, and insane the next. It doesn't work like that. And until you prove it, Lassy, I am a legitimate and certified psychic…detective."

Lassiter paused for a moment, thinking. "Spencer, why don't you—…." He stopped himself when he realized that Shawn was no longer paying attention, but staring intently over his shoulder. Lassiter slowly turned to see what Shawn was looking at.

"…Shh! Kitty, man, stop bein' so loud. This whole joint can hear you." A greasy looking young man in a singed trench coat and biking gloves was trying to calm his hysterical girlfriend. Aside from Shawn and Lassiter, no one was paying them much attention.

"This whole joint can screw itself!" The girl's shrill voice carried her whisper far longer than she had probably intended it to go. "I'm tired of this!"

"I told you, it _ain't_ my fault. Those things just happen!"

"Not things like this, Johnny!" she pouted. "Those were two innocent kids back there. You shoulda known we had the wrong address!"

Both Shawn and Lassiter gaped. Were these the "ghosts" they were looking for? It was just too much of a coincidence to even be considered luck.

Lassiter turned back to his partner, still listening intently to the couples' conversation.

"Kitten, you of all people know my luck," Johnny sighed, looking his girlfriend in the eyes as he slipped two ones on the counter. "We're just lucky the address we got didn't send us to the kid's house."

Shawn frowned, wondering what they were talking about. Johnny's girlfriend sighed, massaging her temples. "Don't even talk about him, Johnny. You know I don't like talking about him."

"I know, I know," he said quietly, forcing Shawn and Lassiter to lean in closer to them, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her tight. "Hey, what do you say, we split an' go for a ride, just you n' me?"

The girl in suspect number one's arms cooed. "Ooh, I'd like that, Johnny."

Together they stood up and slowly made their way to the exit, whispering sweet nothings to each other.

"What the—?" Lassiter began, but Shawn made a vicious silencing motion.

"Wait for it…," he drawled, staring at the closing door the couple had just used. "Wait for _it_…." The sound of a motor springing into life echoed from outside. "Go!"

The two detectives sprang up at the same time and ran out of the bar.

"Damn it all," the senior detective gasped, watching the couple get away. "They have a motorcycle."

"You're forgetting something," Shawn smirked. _"I _have a motorcycle._" _The psychic detective hopped onto the seat of the bike behind him and, slipping on his tinted helmet, he revved the motor. "You take the car!" he yelled as he raced out of the driveway. "I'll follow them!"

Shawn looked for the lights of the other bike on the abandoned highway. When he saw them, he increased his speed. They were only cruising at about fifty miles an hour, so the psychic detective caught up with them quickly. He could see the driver, Johnny gaping in shock at him from his rearview mirror, and as if confirming her boyfriend's sight, Kitty turned her head to look in his direction.

Shawn swiftly pulled his badge from his pocket and waved it at the couple. "SBPD!" he yelled over the roaring engines. Behind them both, the flashing red and blue lights of a cop car indicated Lassiter was only a short distance away. "Pull over now!"

Shawn watched in the suspects' mirror as the driver of the bike rolled his eyes. With a small twist of his gloved hand and a whoop of delight, Johnny's speed increased by at least twenty miles an hour, leaving Shawn in his dust. Shawn's furrowed brows were the only indication of the psychic detective's frustration. This had just become a dramatic chase. Shawn pulled the gas bar tighter. He was now traveling at top speed, and Lassiter's car was close on his tail. The other bike reappeared in his line of vision once more and he quickly caught up to them, intent on passing them and cutting off their escape, but then, at the height of the chase, when he was driving right next to them, both bikes hit a large pothole in the road. As he slowly felt his control slipping, Shawn watched the other bike, and the strangest thing happened. He could have sworn that, for more than a couple of seconds, the bike next to him was _soaring_. With both wheels in the air. But before he got a really good look, the right handle pulled his arm forward, and swung the bike out of line. Shawn was thrown from his bike, luckily landing in a patch of tall grass off of the road, but his bike wasn't so lucky. Lassiter had been right behind him to the left, and hadn't been able to stop in time when Shawn's motorcycle had suddenly veered right in front of the car. The car hit the empty bike and it was instantly crushed under the wheels as the car screeched to a stop.

Lassiter was almost immediately out of the vehicle. "Spencer!" he shouted. "Spencer, answer me! Are you okay?"

The only reply was a drawn out groan.

"Spencer…."

"Of all the rotten luck. Lassiter, where are they?" Spencer spat from the ground through clenched teeth.

The senior detective immediately looked for the bike, but it had mysteriously disappeared. "It was the strangest thing—it looked—oh, god, this is crazy," Lassiter brought a hand to his face and rubbed his eyes. "It looked like they were _flying_."

* * *

**A/N: **Yeah, sorry for another cliffhanger. I just wanted it to be like two scenes from the same story. Anyway, I've decided that maybe I might have time to continue one of these and make it a complete fic, multiple chapters and all. Can I get some input from you guys? If I am to continue one, I'd either do Twilight, X-men, or my not-so-crossoverish Reality TV one. Can't decide. Thanks for your help and support—I ALWAYS appreciate it.


	20. Bartimaeus Trilogy

Nathaniel is troubled to learn that the latest series of bank robberies were not the doings of the illegal resistance, but of a group of enslaved entities he could never have dreamed existed. He had been taught that ghosts were only mythical creatures, but when the banks of London begin to teeter on the verge of bankruptcy, he is jolted to an agonizing reality. AU. Set sometime after the second book.

----

**Bartimaeus Trilogy**

* * *

**Bartimaeus**

When I gazed into the abyss of the narrowed, chocolate eyes of the magician that summoned me, any premature confidence I had brought with me instantly dissipated.

"You just can't get enough of me, can you?" I more or less growled in ire as I crossed my scaly fluorescent arms. The dark haired magician in question didn't immediately respond, but rather just stood there, pensively returning my angry glare. I looked him over, surprised to find his notorious fashion sense left to abandon. His hair was now cut short, but still very apparent contrasting with his pale forehead. His clothes still looked disgustingly "of the times," but it was so much less noticeable than before, probably because his shirt was stained, unbuttoned, torn in several places, and it hung off of him like rags. "You look different," I supplied. "Older, maybe?"

He crossed his arms, a pathetic attempt to mimic the intensity of my intimidation. "Bartimaeus." His voice was much deeper than I remembered, which instigated the question of how long it had been since he let me free. In any case, it sorely clashed with the youthfulness of his twigish form. "As of late, there have been many robberies involving a large number of our major banks. One in particular, Bank of the United Kingdom has been severely damaged. Although the number of victimized corporations has become alarmingly large, there have been no witnesses." I blinked, wondering why in the world he was spewing information in a tired, depressed voice like college professor giving a monotonous lecture. Was there going to be a point? "Bartimaeus, you know your way around London. I charge you to—"

"Wait a second," I finally stopped him. "You are not going to ignore me like I'm just some pathetic Imp." (1)

Unfortunately he was. He shifted uncomfortably in his pentacle and took a ragged breath before continuing like I had never interrupted. "I charge you to find out whether or not the resistance is behind these attacks."

He waited for me to leave like an obedient little djinn, but, fortunately, I am renowned for being neither obedient nor little. "Forgive me, oh Great and Wise Magician, but may I ask—"

"No," he cut me short.

Two could play at this game. I took another drawn out gulp of air. "Then may I point out—"

_"No_," he snapped.

Sheesh, I was only trying to give the kid a little advice. I thought he would have already realized that the resistance was an organization designed for RESITANCE and not petty robberies, but clearly this bit of knowledge had not dawned on my annoying master.

"Go," he ordered, "or I'll force feed you five bolts of electricity!"

I quickly changed my form into a hive of bees and left with a flurry through the open window of what I realized only too late wasn't the room I remembered him living in. It's funny; every time the Natty summons me, he's less inclined to show a little mercy.

-----

**Freakshow**

Isaac Showenhower caressed the glowing red orb that topped his twisted black staff, gazing down from the roof of the boxcar at his ghostly crew slaving away underneath the mounds of gold and cases of bills they carried.

"Faster!" he screamed at them in delight, his shrill voice echoing through the vast and empty train station. "Faster, my minions! The police will be here at any moment!"

One ghost in particular, a white haired, strangely tanned young boy, bound against his will like his kin to the memorizing staff, smiled, his master's hysterical excitement leaking pseudo-happiness into his otherwise blank mind. His unnatural glowing red eyes narrowed as he stumbled under the weight of five bags of gold and he sped to the open boxcar. He and the other enslaved ghosts tossed the loot uncaringly into their makeshift home.

As soon as the stolen items were loaded, the ringmaster snapped his fingers impatiently. Without hesitation, the green ghost of a tattoed woman working tirelessly alongside the young white haired boy flew to her master's side and gently floated him down from the roof of the train car to the muddy ground.

"Thank you, Lydia," the ringmaster praised, baring his crooked, yellow teeth as he bowed with a flourish of his gloved hand. Lydia bowed in response, her own smile broadening in mock pleasure at making her master happy. Showenhower entered a separate, much nicer boxcar than the one in which his minions and stolen money lived.

"Onward to Manchester!" he yelled. He slid the door of the train car shut, revealing a painted sign hanging from the outer wall reading, "No ghosts allowed!"

No sooner did the band of ghosts enter their living quarters did the train begin to move quickly down the tracks. Neither the ringmaster nor the ghosts realized they had been watched.

-----

**Bartimaeus**

I looked back at the building in which I had been summoned and was shocked to see not Nathaniel's posh hotel of a home, but a dilapidated version of what looked like an abandoned restaurant on the outskirts of town. No wonder the kid wasn't as into talking as he used to be. What had caused this sudden decline in class? Hopefully, after I completed my task, I would know.

As I flew on, I ended up reducing my numbers so that I would be less noticeable. London saw only one lonely bee buzzing through its crooked cobblestoned streets. I stealthily evaded the detection of any guard Imps by scanning the fifth plane. Contemplating my next course of action, I landed on the roof of an abnormally tall city building. Strangely enough, this was when I first felt it; a peculiar chill washed over my otherwise burning senses. We djinn are creatures of fire, as you must already know. Even an Afrit wouldn't be able to produce any magic from a puddle of water. Cold is a normally relatively foreign feeling. But there it was anyway, settling on my shoulders. I shivered from the feeling--it was like being next to a cold silver wall.

"What could possibly be the cause of…," I wondered aloud, one of my more annoying habits.

When I buzzed my incandescent wings into flight, I realized that it wasn't just a feeling; there was a trail of coldness leading far into the distance. I could only follow in anticipation of what was waiting at the end. All in all, I should have realized what it was. I had never seen one with my own eyes, but I had caught a whiff of rumor that they were almost common in the Americas. Of course, no magicians know of this--I assume ghosts generally aren't stupid creatures considering they are smart enough as a whole to keep away from the knowledge and tyrannous control of those outdated, old oppressors.

When I stopped on the outskirts of an abandoned old train station, I heard their voices.

"Thank you, Lydia," this high pitched voice rang through the empty halls. It was an odd version of an American accent; I could only associate the voice with some sort of clown. When the owner came into my view, I saw indeed the slim figure of a man very eerily reminiscent of a clown. He wasn't intimidating, but his looks sure scared the hell out of me. His yellowed teeth stood out from under a huge nose, contrasting brightly with his dreary pinstriped suit. In his right hand he held carefully on to a foreboding crystal ball, which could only have been of magician's making. It glowed a menacing red, and it hurt my head to stare at it for too long, so I instead looked for the source of my chill. I nearly jumped when I saw what it was, which is saying a lot, because it is very hard for a bee to jump. Ghosts. There were ghosts; a whole crowd of them looking blankly to the only living man in the room—the clown. I could tell because they were glowing brightly on all planes. They all shone an unsightly green, save for one, whose tanned human colored skin and white hair stuck out like a sore thumb.

The clown barely spared them a passing glance before turning and marching into one of the boxcars of an abandoned train. "Onward to Manchester!" he cried shrilly, laughing hysterically as he slammed the door shut behind him. The ghosts followed suit, floating into the car attached to the clown's. I barely caught the glimmer of gold caused by the aura of the ghosts reflecting off of gold coins, but it was only more confirmation of what I already knew. These were the mysterious thieves I had been looking for.

I realize that Natty probably would have wanted me to follow or attack them, but one, his orders had only been to find out whether it was the resistance behind the robberies or not, two, the scary clown had screeched their intended destination, and three, I honestly don't know enough about ghosts for it to be worth the risk. Who knew what kind of weird magic they had up their sleeves? That chill alone would negate the powers of an Imp.

For now, I was content with returning back to my master with the information. Who knows? Maybe he'll be so proud, he'll tear up, tell me what a good servant I've been, and let me go.

-

"Hello, Mr. Mandrake!" I shouted upon arrival as I shifted back into the form of a young Egyptian boy. Natty glared at me from the corner of the room next to a mound of open books.

"That was rather fast," he commented suspiciously.

I shrugged. "I _am_ the best of the best, you know."

He rolled his eyes at me in response. "Well? Do you know anything?"

This is one of those times where it pays off to know his birth name. (2) "I'll tell you who's behind the attacks," I told him with a sly grin, "if you tell me what happened to you."

You should have been here; the boy's expression was priceless. First a look of confusion, which quickly faded into a look of disbelief. Finally his eye started twitching a little when pure unadulterated anger made his face burn bright red. "You should know better than to defy me, demon," he growled.

I, of course, laughed. "That's just what you get for continually summoning me. Why do you keep bringing me down here? I know your name; you can't hurt me."

He glowered at me, but really, there is just no arguing with my logic. "Nothing's happened to me."

"Don't lie to me, Natty-boy," I commanded. "Where's your limo and fancy mansion?"

"Just tell me who's behind the robberies. Is it the resistance?" he wondered. "I knew it. I knew it was the resistance all along."

"It wasn't the resistance," I growled in frustration. "It was someone else. Just tell me—you won't know what I know until you do."

He gave me a bitter look that I completely ignored. "Deveraux and Farrar both accused me of selling information when I couldn't find the bank theives," he mumbled sourly. "They replaced me—outsourced my job to someone over seas. I had to run for my life—they were trying to arrest me. Me! John Mandrake!"

"Over seas?" I wondered aloud, ignoring his little egotistical outburst of pride. "Where?"

"Well, he actually claims he's from Russia, but…," Nathaniel sighed. "I just get this feeling he's working for the Americans. That's what I'm trying to find out. I think the robberies, Vlad Masters, and the resistance are all related."

"Vlad Masters? That's your successor's name?" I asked. When he nodded, I couldn't help but laugh. "Well you might be onto something, but rest assured that the resistance has no connection whatsoever to the robberies."

"Who, then?"

I sobered a little. "You're not going to believe this," I told him. I hesitated a little, mainly because telling him would mean the exposure of an entire race of ghosts that magicians could possibly learn to enslave, but went on anyway. "But the reason you have no witnesses to all the robberies is because the masterminds behind it are ghosts."

I was right. He didn't believe me. He angrily knocked over a stack of books, sending loose sheets of parchment flying everywhere and cursed. "What do you take me for?" he yelled.

I shrugged. "Hey I told you you weren't going to believe me, but that's what I saw."

"Describe them," he ordered sarcastically, most likely not really expecting me to obey.

"Well, there were four of them," I told him as genuinely as I could. "One was a creepy looking woman with tattoos marking her entire body. One was a little boy, probably no older than you—" His eyes narrowed at the fact that I had compared him to a little boy. "The other two were a giant and a midget. They all glowed a rotten green, except for the boy, who, aside from the ghostly glow, had the skin of a human."

It wasn't exactly the most plausible description, but I think Nat picked up on my sincerity. "What were they doing?"

"Well, there was a terrifyingly ugly human standing on a train. He was holding a shining red crystal ball. The ghosts were looking at him blankly, and their eyes were all the same color—the disturbing red of the magical device—so I assumed that they were under his control," I explained, frowning at his look of disbelief. "They were loading up a train with bags of gold, and before long, they left."

"And you didn't follow them?" The urgency in Nat's voice disturbed me a little.

"You actually believe me?" Even I was having a hard time believing the story spewing from my mouth. It was worse than an old cartoon.

"'With every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,'" he quoted. "Historically, ghosts are fabled to be essences of ice. If you demons are beings of fire, wouldn't there have to be beings of ice?"

"What have I told you about the word demon? It's derogatory," I growled, knowing my chastising was falling on deaf ears. (3)

"Why didn't you follow them?" he asked again, angrily this time.

I crossed my skinny arms. "Your charge was to 'find out whether the resistance is behind the robberies or not.' It wasn't, are you happy?"

Nat ground his teeth together in frustration. "How will we find them? That train could be anywhere by now!"

"Oh, well, I might have heard a little something about where they were going," I hinted, inspecting my nails.

"Where!" It wasn't a question, it was more of an order, but I kept on picking at my nails.

"Maybe someone should contemplate letting me go," I said lightly without looking at him.

"I will not let you go, Bartimaeus," Nathaniel growled. "But…." he sighed, clearly reluctant to continue. "I'm…sorry I called you a demon."

"Manchester," I finally said. "They're going to Manchester."

* * *

**(1) **There are more or less five major subtypes of magical entities, Imps being the weakest. Foliots are more powerful than Imps, but are still considered weak beings. Next, you have Djinn (ahem, like yours truly,) all very wise, powerful, and majestic creatures, really. Magicians love us, because we are able to complete nearly any charge they can think to pull out of their you-know-whats. Then of course there are Afrits and Marids. Pure brute strength makes up for what they lack in the brain department. For a full list, I suggest maybe _reading my books _instead of this miniscule exerpt_._

**(2)** We beings of the Other Place are frequently subject to summoning by magicians. They bind us to their will with spells, and when we defy them, it usually ends up pretty badly. We are defenseless against their magic, except when they mess up their spells and we find a loophole in their magic, or when we know their birth names. Each magician from about the time they begin their apprenticeship choose a new, fake name to protect them from djinn like me. Thankfully, Nat was stupid and allowed me to find out about his. His fake name is John Mandrake—the ugliest name, I know. Since I know his birth-name, I am able to shield myself from his attacks, but he still holds the binding power of a magician over my head. It's really quite annoying, actually.

**(3)** I seriously think I've told the kid at least ten times that I'm not a demon, but he just doesn't listen. Pheh, magicians.

* * *

**A/N:** This might become a full-fledged fic if there are enough people who have read this trilogy. On a side note, sorry to those of you who _have_ read the books. I haven't seen them in the longest time, so some of my facts might be wrong. Plus, Stroud is an excellent writer, and I'm sure I didn't capture the exact level of wittiness displayed in his books.


	21. Mystery Chapter

You do not need to know the crossover to understand this chapter.

* * *

**???**

Take a Shot in the Dark

* * *

I was still nostalgic. Even then, after fifteen entire months, I was still vulnerable to waves of home-sickness. Once, as I was being escorted to the Dining Hall, we had passed several men from the lab, all of them dressed in tight Hazmat suits the way my parents always used to. One was wearing thick, black rimmed goggles. Red lenses. My stomach clenched and locked up; I wasn't able to eat that day or any other day we happened passed them. Presently, I was sitting in my room, contemplating my short life. With my knees drawn up, I looked up at the cement ceiling only a foot away from my face. I let my eyes roll up into my head and, closing them, I fell back onto my cot. Below me, my bunkmate shifted at the squeak of the mattress springs, chumbling under his breath to alert me of the fact that I was keeping him awake. It was night. The moonlight poured in from the brick-sized window on the opposite side of the room and hit my face with so much force, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep.

They had caught me. All those fifteen months ago, they had caught me. Wrenched me away from my life; they didn't even let me say goodbye to my family. I wasn't able to be there when they told my parents in their own words what I was—what I had become. Are they disgusted? Do they still love me? What were their faces like when they learned I was half ghost? I was so sure that I would never know the answer to my unvoiced questions.

I shifted again to slide my hands underneath my head for a makeshift pillow. My room had not come with one. I looked out the window, right at the moon. The same moon my friends and family were under right now. My friends. Before I had been caught, I'd had a terrible spat with them. I remembered it as clear as an azure summer sky. I had wanted them to be out of the way of a particularly dangerous fight. If I recally correctly, I think I had been battling Skulker, which wouldn't have been difficult if they had not been getting in the way. They objected my pleas for them to leave. Why didn't the leave? Sam had said she was only trying to be there for me, and…I pushed her. Pushed her out of the battle completely.

I suppose I could have hurt her; I'll never be able to know for sure because soon afterwards, the Guys in White appeared from behind. It had been an ambush and I hadn't seen it coming until it was too late. Ensnared in an ecto-enhanced net, I was helpless against them. Skulker, too, had been caught. He rode next to me, the both of us cuffed like we were riding in the back of one of Walker's squad cars. We rode in silence because a Guy in White sat with us. It wasn't soon after that they found out I am half ghost. I had been placed in a small room—the very same room I was sleeping in now, in fact—and I was tested every day. What was the extent of my powers? How much ecto-energy could I produce until I could no longer retain my ghost form? Was I a worthwhile practice target? What the Guys in White were able to record was unkown, 1.21 gigi-watts, and yes, respectively. After testing, I usually had to be dragged back to my room. I was normally more worn out than my bunk-mate because, I supposed, of my half-ghost status. He was entirely ghost, so the amount of testing done on him was comparatively low. His name is Johnny. He has a last name, he told me, but everyone just calls him Johnny 13 because of his bad luck. He snores.

My stomach made a loud gurgling noise. Today, on the way back from testing, I had seen a ghost with blue skin, a long, angular face, and pointed fangs. Oddly, even the memory of Vlad filled me with a sense of loss. I was sure that I would never get to fight with him again, and for some reason that upset me. The ghost I had seen wasn't Vlad, but someone else, who gave me a strange look when I stared openly.

My stomach horned again, a long drawn out grumbling noise, and I rolled onto my side. Underneath me, Johnny tolchocked the mettle bar supporting my cot and my mattress and I shook heavily. I had been frightened for a second that the bolts would come loose from the walls, that my cot would fall and I would squish poor Johnny, but besides the crumbling of a few flecks of cement, the room grew was still.

"Sorry," I whispered sarcastically to the room, rolling onto my stomach to squelch any more noise it would make, but I didn't receive an answer.

Not soon enough, I fell asleep.

* * *

I awoke the very next morning to the slamming of the door. From underneath me, I heard Johnny roll over on his cot and moan.

"Get up, double six double five three two one," the harsh voice of the nurse greeted my ears. I covered my head with my hands and curled into myself.

"Double six double five three two one," the nurse repeated, annoyed. "Now."

"Get up, man," my bunk-mate groaned, his voice muffled by his mattress. I knew he just didn't want to wake up to the sound of me being beaten by Nurse Chappy.

With a loud yawn, I jumped down from my bed. I yet again overestimated the strength of my legs. They hit the ground and crumbled under my weight. I fell face first onto the cobbled floor. I was been in the process of picking myself up when Chappy did it for me. He grabbed me by the scruff of my collar and hauled me to my feet. The handcuffs were slapped onto my wrists behind my back and cranked a tick too tight around my raw wrists.

This was the first morning I hadn't been awake when they arrived for me. My body had learned to wake up at the same time every day, and since I hadn't been awake when Chappy came, I couldn't help but wonder. "Why so early, Chappy?"

Chappy gave me a long sideways glance paired nicely with a deep frown. "How many times have I told you?" was his deep throated monotone reply.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "Why so early, Chappy, _sir_?"

I wasn't expecting the celerity of his response. He grabbed the chain of my handcuffs and slammed me against the wall. He was a full grown, muscular man at his peak; I, on the other hand, am a seventeen year old boy whose ghost half had been disabled by the Guys in White. When my head hit the bricks with a crack, I crumpled to the ground, gasping away the stars in my eyes. I looked up to see my bunk mate sitting erect, looking at Chappy and me with a mask of indifference. Well, really I wouldn't have really known if it was a mask or not, as he had probably grown accustomed to me being beaten out of bed nearly every morning.

"What is my name, ghost?" His voice still didn't have any inflection at all, even though it was clearly a question.

I glanced at Chappy. "Mister Chaplain, sir," I said, ignoring the way my mind screamed, "Fight! Fight!"

"Get up," he ordered. I used the chipped bricks of the wall to pull myself to my feet. Chappy dragged me by my neck out the door, slamming it in my bunk mate's blank face.

I felt something hot running down my left temple and in the pit of my stomach, a whirl of fear spun around and around. Where were we going so early in the morning?

I was half dragged down the long hallway until we reached a door I had never been through before. Chappy opened it, and slammed it behind us, giving me a rough shove forward in the process. I stumbled, but still somehow managed to keep my balance. I looked up to see several chassos watching me with wary eyes. Behind them was a tall man dressed in a smooth black jacket and tie. My heart stopped for a beat when memories of Mister Masters returned and nostalgia filled my mind.

"Hello, Daniel." Even his voice was suave, like Vlad's, but, looking into the man's small brown eyes, I knew I wasn't dealing with anyone like the old billionaire. "I am Frederick Deltoid."

"Very nice to meet you, sir," I said automatically.

"Do you know why I am here?"

I glanced sideways at Chappy, who was staring straight ahead. "No, sir, I don't."

Deltoid looked at me long and hard. "You're how old?"

"Seventeen. Sir," I added as an afterthought.

Deltoid looked directly at Chappy and nodded. "And you don't think that is too young?" he asked the nurse.

Chappy shook his head. "Of course not. And besides, it shouldn't matter."

"Age does matter, but I suppose he is old enough." Deltoid refocused on me. "Well, Daniel," he said, as if he hadn't just objectified me. "I'm here because we want to treat you."

"Treat me, sir?" I couldn't stop my eyes from narrowing.

"Yes, treat you," Deltoid grinned like I was a boy on Christmas day and he was waiting for my expression when I opened his present. "While the government denies Daniel Phantom his rights, it cannot deny Daniel Fenton his." A sickening feeling rose in my stomach as he spoke. "We want to help you, Mr. Fenton. It's simple, really. All we need to do is rid you of your ghostly tendencies. Then, you'll be out of here, scot-free."

"And how do you intend to do that? Sir?" I didn't know how much longer my feet could hold me. I swayed and tried to blink away the creeping tunnel vision. My mind began to spin at the thought of them splitting me in half, separating me. I could almost predict what the Danny Phantom side of me would do. If he was angry enough, he could very well take the entire complex down.

"Take a seat, Daniel," Deltoid said pointing to a plastic chair beside me. I sat with a heavy thud, dazed. "It is nothing complex. The Ludovico Treatment simply puts the Pavolovian theory to effect."

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recalled something from school about that. Something about a dog and a bell. Or something. "I'm sorry?"

"Pavlovian conditioning, my dear boy," Deltoid clapped me on the shoulder with a huge hand and I breathed a sigh of relief. They weren't going to split me in half. "The treatment will be in two separate sessions. We don't have a full list of side-effects, because, well, you're the first human to be lined up for testing. But you'll be just fine, of course."

"Anything to get out of here, Mr. Deltoid, sir," I said cheerfully. After fifteen entire months, were things starting to look up? Would I finally be freed?

"So we can expect you here, tomorrow?"

"Of course, sir," I rushed. "Of course you can."

* * *

I was awake hours before Chappy came. To Johnny's dismay, I ended up pacing the room to pass the time. He watched me pace for five long silent minutes until, sitting up, he frowned.

"You'll come back and get me," he said quietly, "won't you?"

"Of course I will," I said happily. Even if I hadn't planned on going back for my bunk mate, I was going to make sure that nothing could ruin that day. The day I would finally be freed.

"You're jus' sayin' that, aren't you?"

I shrugged. "You'll have to wait and see, I guess."

Then the door finally swung open, revealing Chappy and the glowing hand cuffs.

"Double six double five three two one," Chappy recited, and I gave Johnny one last look.

Our goodbye was a very anti-climactic ending to the short time we had known each other.

"'Bye."

"Catch you later."

With that, the door closed, separating two people who wouldn't see each other for a very long time.

Chappy pushed me again through a door, where Deltoid stood, waiting in front of what looked like a huge movie theater.

"Good morning, Mr. Fenton."

"Good morning, Mr. Deltoid, sir," I said back, unable to wipe the grin off of my face.

"Take a seat, there." He pointed to a seat in the front row and I nearly ran to it. I jingled the chain of the cuffs with my hands behind my back, expecting them to be taken off, but Mr. Deltoid smiled at me. "Those will stay, for now."

Before I knew it, my chest and legs were strapped to the cushioned seat and I was being offered two giant red pills. "You're going to take these, Mr. Fenton," one of Deltoid's nurses said, and I couldn't even protest before they were forced into my mouth. She held up a glass of water and ordered me to swallow. I swallowed down the pills in one big gulp. I waited with Deltoid, for several long minutes for the projector to warm up. Then Deltoid left.

"The next time I see you," he said as he walked down an isle to the exit, "you'll be a free man."

His nurse approached me with two strange devices in her hands. "Open your eyes," she ordered. "Don't blink. These will keep your eyes open for the treatment."

"They have to be open the whole time?" I asked.

She nodded wordlessly and before I knew what happened, thin mettle clamps were forcing my eyelids apart. I couldn't blink.

"Commence," a voice over an intercom announced. The nurse left just as music began to play and the room grew dark.

Images began to dance along the screen. A picture of a standard Guy in White holding what looked like a huge Fenton Bazooka flashed and then faded into a photograph of an octopus ghost getting blasted away. Then there were pictures of other ghost hunters blasting and punching other ghosts. There was an unnecessary amount of ectoplasm and there was also an unnecessary amount of blood. Bright green clashed with sparkling ruby red.

I couldn't help it; I struggled in my seat when the adrenaline began to run through my veins, but I was strapped too tightly to do anything other than wiggle. The pictures looked so very realistic. They made me want to go ghost and join in. I kept struggling against the bonds, but nothing happened. But then, as I struggled to break free, a sickening feeling settled into my stomach. I could feel it as I watched the screen, I could feel it travel up into my chest. Then it reached my throat and I began to gag. I choked and sputtered, trying wildly to look away, but I couldn't move or shut my eyes, and no matter where I looked, I could always see the pictures. The paralyzing nauseating feeling washed over me as I watched a slide of ghosts hurting humans fade into a slide of humans hurting ghosts. I was being conditioned.

"Stop," I gasped through clenched teeth. "I'm gonna be sick. Please stop. Please turn it off."

"It's almost over, Mr. Fenton," Deltoids voice crackled overhead.

I couldn't stop tears, and not long after, my cheeks stung with salt. My fists clenched and unclenched. I stopped breathing for a while to see if the deathly feeling would disappear, but no matter what I did, it lingered, threatening my life. I tried to change into ghost form, but as soon as the rings appeared around my chained waist, I was shocked by the bracelet the ecto-hand cuffs.

I screamed loudly. "Please! I'll never go ghost again!"

The music ended and the last slide faded away. The eye clamps were removed, and my head was allowed to droop to my chest. My bangs blocked my view of the nurse, but I could see her feet both taking turns carrying her weight.

"You're all right, Mr. Fenton," she said calmly, and I looked up at her. "You're going to be fine."

She was right. When the movie ended, the feeling had disappeared.

"How does that happen?" I said shakily, warily checking to making sure the feeling wouldn't return.

"The drugs," she answered simply. "The effects last for approximately an hour after you swallow. The movie was exactly that long."

She didn't untie me, but lifted a mug of water to my mouth. I took a long gulp and my breathing began to slow.

"It felt like death," I told her, giving her the most meaningful look I could. I stared into her large brown eyes, knowing exactly what she was going to say next.

"Only one more, Mr. Fenton. Then you'll be free."

One more. One more. I didn't think I could survive one more.

"Here. Take these." She produced two more large pills for me to swallow and brough her hand to my mouth.

I clenched my mouth shut and tried to move my head away. She pinched my nose. Eventually, I had to breathe. I gasped for air, and while I was doing so, she speedily popped the pills into my mouth and forced the mug of water back to my lips. Tilting it, she ordered, "Swallow."

I swallowed and she moved out of the way. _Only one more,_ I told myself. _Only one more…._

The lights dimmed and she stepped out of my view. The music began to play and I waited for the pictures to appear. They didn't. The music stopped and the lights flickered back to life.

"What is wrong?" Deltoid's muffled voice reached my ears.

A voice I couldn't recognize answered, "I don't know. I think It's the bulb."

"Well, fix it!"

Several minutes passed by and I waited for either the movie to start or the drugs to kick in. Both made me equally terrified.

"We're very sorry, Daniel," Deltoid's voice said over the intercom. "All we have is a tinted bulb for the projector. It will be slightly darker, but I'm sure your young eyes will be able to see just fine."

The movie began just as I felt the feeling again, rising from my stomach. I blanched and tried not to struggle, but it was very hard to stay still and watch the movie.

He was right; the screen was slightly darker than before. This time, I was forced to see pictures that were mostly from Amity Park. There was one of Valerie flying through the air, her huge Master's Bazooka hoisted on her shoulder. She was wearing the expression she always wore when she saw Danny Phantom. Then, there was my parents standing protectively in front of the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle. They, too, had huge weapons charged with painful looking blasts. Then I saw myself, flying peacefully through the nighttime sky. There was one of me in broad daylight, just standing on a sidewalk with some weird expression on my face. It was hard to decipher the difference between the daylight pictures and the night time pictures because of the dark tint. That was when I realized it; the tint wasn't just dark. It was purple. Grape flavor purple. Purple like the color of Sam wore. Like the color of her eyes.

"It's purple!" I cried out through my heavy panting, terrified. "Stop it, it's purple!"

"Something wrong, Mr. Fenton?" a voice I didn't know asked over the speakers.

"It's purple!" I screamed. "Just like her eyes. Purple!" I was being conditioned to feel sick at the sight of purple. "I'm cured! I'll never, ever have anything to do with ghosts! I hate ghosts! I hate them!"

My screams were met with silence. They weren't going to answer me. The movie didn't stop--they were going to make me finish it.

I gagged and coughed and panted as the movie dragged on. Valerie. Plasmius. Skulker. The Box Ghost. Danny Phantom. Fenton Weapons. Hazmat suits. I was spared nothing.

"Let me go!" I screamed some more. "Please! I'm going to be sick!"

I fought against the bonds to no avail. I was stuck. So I drowned out the music with my screams and kept watching. I felt my adrenaline spike again, and I couldn't stop the ecto-energy from rising to my throat. The ecto-cuffs shocked me but I couldn't force the energy back down. I let it out in a burst and a single wave of energy ripped through the theater. The projector screen flapped and disintegrated, but the wall behind it still caught the slides of the projector.

Then it was over. I was left with nothing but the sound of my own wheezing lungs. The eye clamps were removed, the cuffs and straps were removed, and I fell in a fetal position to the ground. I grabbed my head in my sore hands and blocked out any noise with moans of agony.

"It still hurts. I still feel it," I whispered. I felt the nurse's hand on my shoulder. She rolled me onto my back and with the help of another nurse pulled me to my shaky feet. I swayed, and they caught me, but they dragged me to Deltoid, who was in the back row.

He was pale, but smiling at me. "One last test," he told me. "It's only to make the investors happy. You'll only be here for one more hour."

* * *

They put me on a stage in front of a very small crowd. I couldn't see very well with the lighting, but the entire front row was comprised of polished men and women in buisines dress.

"This is Daniel Fenton." Deltoid was standing right beside me on the stage, speaking into a microphone. "He has undergone the Ludovico Technique, and he will be the first human to prove that it works."

The crowd burst into chumbles, the lot of them rumbling with their own whispers.

Deltoid waited for silence to overtake them before he went on. "He is no longer able to change into his ghost form, which, as you all know, is the infamous Danny Phantom. Enter Ghost Hunter."

A young man, most likely a Guy in White entered the stage from the right entrance dressed in a business suit and tie. He smiled a sick smile at me and even though nothing had yet to happen, I felt my heart drop to my feet.

"Hi, there," he said cheerfully to me, as if we weren't being observed by twenty people.

"Hello," I answered quietly, glancing between him and the crowd.

"How are you?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. I couldn't decide whether he was being conversational because he was acting, or if he was just plain crazy.

"Why do you ask?" I answered slowly.

"You look disgusting." His answer came as a slight shock to me. It was so open and, well, rude. "You smell terrible, too."

"But I just had a shower this morning," I answered, nonplussed.

"Are you calling me a liar?" he asked and his cheerful demeanor disappeared.

"No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that," I stated, looking from him to the crowd in worriment.

"You're sorry?" he repeated snarkily, mocking the raspy cracks in my voice. As I stared into the laughing crowd, I hadn't expected him to slap me in the face.

"Ow!" I yelped. "Why did you do that?"

"I do whatever I want," he said and I hadn't even had the time to respond before he pulled back and punched me in the jaw. As I reeled back, his foot hooked around my leg, and I fell with a grunt to the ground.

I couldn't help but be angry. He was strong; I was weak. I felt my face grow hot. And, as I pushed myself onto my knees, I glared at him with flashing green eyes. I had only to think about exacting revenge as Danny Phantom to ignite the dreaded feeling. It grew in my stomach and in only seconds I was on my hands and knees, retching and coughing.

The man laughed at me, and kicked me in the side. I rolled onto my back, groaning in pain. He placed his foot on my chest and stood over me, looking down at me with his ugly blue eyes. That was when I tried to change form. The blue rings appeared around my waist, but then the feeling doubled, crippling any action I had planned to take. I could no longer see him, but bright stars fading in and out of reality. I blacked out.

* * *

I awoke to a soft slap in the face.

"Wake up, Daniel." It was Deltoid, hovering over me with a huge grin on his face. "You're free, now. You can go home."

"Home?" I echoed groggily.

"Yes. Now get up and collect your things from the front desk," he said, pulling me to my feet. "It was a pleasure, Mr. Fenton."

I shook his hand and nodded, still woozy. I let him direct me to the front desk. They gave me my civilian clothes back, and my empty Fenton Thermos, which I promptly threw away, and I exited through the big glass doors. I was free. I breathed in the air, allowing the feeling of liberty to envelop me. I was finally fee.

The first thing I did was walk straight home. I marched all the way to Fenton Works and knocked on the front door.

"A ghost!" I heard my father's muffled yell from inside. The door swung open to reveal my father aiming a huge Bazooka at my face. I swayed at the image, trying to fight down the feeling of disgust and nausea.

"Dad, put that down," I heard Jazz whine, and after I blinked, the Bazooka was out of his hands, hidden behind the door. He stared at me in what could only be terror.

"Danny?" Jazz's face peered around his shoulder.

My father shook the look off of his face and forced on a smile. "Danny," he said hesitantly. "You're…back."

"Hiya, Dad," I said. "How've you been?"

I brushed past him through the door and threw myself onto the living room sofa. My dad paused at the door, but then followed me back inside.

"Great, son," he answered finally, sitting by me on the couch. "What a surprise this is, then. It's great to see you."

Even as he said those words, he looked very ill at ease. I frowned.

"I didn't think you'd ever get out of there," Jazz gushed cheerfully. "Oh, Danny it's been so terrible without you."

She looked to our father expectantly and gave him a little nudge. "What? Oh, yes, it has. So terrible," he echoed her emotionlessly. "They didn't tell us you'd be back so soon."

"Well, they've treated me. My ghost half is gone," I lied without missing a beat. "I'm human now, through and through. But you know I was always the same, don't you? Even as Danny Phantom."

When my father didn't answer, Jazz answered for him. "Of course, he does, Danny. It just came as a shock to him when he learned you were half ghost. That's all."

I heard footsteps, and I turned to see my mother, dressed in her same blue Hazmat suit entering the living room. "Jack, honey, who was at the—Danny!"

She froze and looked me up and down, as if to reassure herself that I was who she thought I was.

"Hi, Mom." I gave her a little wave.

She reached up and pulled off her goggles. I had to look away. Her eyes were the same color as Sam's. Looking at the floor did nothing to help me in the situation.

"You're back," she said after a long moment.

"They treated me, mom," I told her, sick even at the thought. "I'll never be a ghost again."

"It was all over the papers," she said.

"Well, I'm gonna go to my room, now," I told them, standing up to leave.

"Ah," Jazz said uncertainly.

"Ah, well," my mother began, "your room is no longer your room."

"You changed it?" I gasped.

"Well, son, you've been away for quite a while," my father said, "and, well, since the lab has always been messy, we sort of...."

"You turned my room into a storage closet for your inventions," I surmised solemnly. I turned to Jazz. "Jazz, why didn't you stop them?"

"I…. I didn't think you were coming back, Danny," she said, tears making her eyes sparkle in the light. "I'm sorry."

"You've made your sister cry," my father said accusingly.

I backed away from them all, all my happiness dissipated. "I see how it is."

"Danny, don't go!" Jazz sniffled.

I supposed I was acting a little dramatic. But it could have been a side effect of the drugs or sleep deprivation. It really couldn't have been helped. "I've suffered and I've suffered and I've suffered. And you all want me to keep on suffering," I said. "Don't bother getting up. I'm leaving."

In that moment of opacity, I disappeared. I slipped out of their view and walked out of the house without thinking. But as soon as I had made it to the door, I began to retch and gag. My throat swelled and closed, and I clawed at my neck, gasping for air.

The feeling always passes quickly. I soon got to my feet and began to wander the streets, wondering just where, oh where I could go. Eventually, I chose my destination.

I took a left on my street and made my way to Sam's.

* * *

**A/N:** The reason my lips are zipped is because I don't know whether I should be proud that I took time out of my day to watch this movie or embarrassed. If you can guess what the crossover is I'd be a little surprised. Thanks for reviewing!


	22. Any 80s Horror Flick

**-ADOPTED-**

by SBHY01

* * *

**WARNING!**

Rough language, violence, and disturbing scenes.

**WARNING!**

* * *

**Every Horror Movie in General**

Just One in Specific

* * *

**Thursday, 9 PM**

"I thought I told you to stay out!"

Samantha cringed, her downcast purple eyes aimed at the hardwood panels on the floor. "I was—" she began, choking, "I was checking to see if you wanted dinner yet."

"Jesus Christ," Danny Fenton rolled his angelic blue eyes. "No! I don't!"

His wife only shook timidly. Her eyes met his for only a brief moment before she looked away.

"Can't you see?" Fenton asked. "Can't you see that every time you interrupt my work—…. It takes _time_ for me to go back—to fix what you've done! Why can't you just stay the hell out!"

Mrs. Fenton swallowed all the fear in her throat—a huge, golf ball-sized lump of emotion that bruised her esophagus as it went down. Her voice was thin even as she gave her husband a frown. "I'll be in the dining room, then."

She turned on her heels and left her husband to his patenting, breathing purposefully and slowly, quaking with each step.

It wasn't that she disliked her husband; no. She loved him. She loved him with all her racing heart. He had worked and worked and worked all his life—all for her. He had saved up his money and got her the house of her dreams. But then, when the economy turned, Danny was fired; they went under. The house was mortgaged, and Danny could no longer pay the bills. They had to sell.

But it wasn't the end for them.

Samantha smiled as she recalled the warmth of the one person her husband had been sure would never help.

On a cold, dark night—one of the last they would spend in their Victorian estate on the coast of South Carolina—the phone had chimed as she packed the last of their possessions in a thick cardboard box. She had picked it up and held it to her ear, folding a sweater of her husband's.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Mrs. Manson," a drawling voice had replied.

She had paused, dropping the sweater to stand on her feet. "Vlad Masters…?"

Samantha searched through the loaded pantry to find the dry pasta. Vlad Masters had been so kind to them. He had offered them his Colorado vacation house—a house five times larger than the Victorian house in South Carolina. It was so very beautiful. The best part was that, in the winter, it was ski-in, ski-out. They could ski all day and then come home and have dinner. It was in a very remote and isolated part of the mountain, so it was rare that anyone ever bothered them.

Samantha sighed as she dumped the pasta into a pot on the stove. Sometimes, it did get a little lonely. Her husband was always involved in his work. He had decided to take up the family business and patent his parents' unpatented inventions as well as attempt to invent some of his own. He wasn't very good at inventing ghost weapons, and the patenting was all specific paperwork, so it took him a great deal of concentration and time to work. Sometimes he would work in his study for an entire day, and Samantha would be left all alone to clean the house, cook, and occasionally ski.

Whenever she interrupted him, he got angry. Samantha had learned for the most part to steer clear of him when he was at work. Some of it was natural anger, she supposed. If she was hard at work, she wouldn't want to be interrupted, either. But most of his anger, she knew, came from his ghost half. He rarely allowed himself to exercise, and she knew that having to take anything of his ex-archenemy's sorely hurt his pride.

She sat alone at the huge dining room table eating her pasta and listening to the winter wind howl at the window screens. Samantha stared absently out of the shaking window as she brought her fork to her mouth, though it was night and she couldn't see past the wooden second floor porch support.

She was almost finished when she heard her husband enter the room. She looked up.

"Well?" He took a seat across from her. "Where is it?"

She held up her index finger. "One sec; your dinner's still in the pot."

She stood up and left the dining room for the kitchen. After filling a gold-lined plate from the redwood cupboard with a generous amount of pasta, she brought it to the dining room and set it down on the table in front of her husband. She sat in her chair and watched him eat.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

His blue eyes met hers. "It's cold."

"Well, you were working," she deadpanned.

"I would have been done earlier," he said, "if I hadn't been interrupted."

Samantha ground her teeth together. "I was only trying to be nice."

"Just shut the hell up, Sam."

Samantha sucked in a breath of air, but otherwise didn't respond.

Danny continued pushing the pasta around his plate. "So, have you called yet?"

His wife blinked at the sudden change of atmosphere. "I was going to do it after dinner," she said.

"He's on Chicago time," Danny reminded her, looking at his watch. "It's getting late."

Samantha smiled. He usually never brought up her Thursday night calls. "Do you want to speak with him?"

"No."

She sighed and began clearing. After wiping down the wood of the table, she said, "You're sure?"

Danny stood up and, pushing his chair in, looked at his wife meaningfully. "Yes." He exited the dining room. "See you."

**10 PM**

Samantha stumbled into the foyer, where her favorite chair in the entire house sat on four paw-shaped legs. She curled up against the gold fabric and pulled the ancient phone on the end table into her lap.

Ever since Vlad had given them the house, out of respect she called the man every Thursday night to check up on him. Danny was, at first, opposed to this, but after a while, he gave up trying to convince his wife that Vlad didn't need checking up on. Eventually, Samantha had found that she looked forward to their chats. Mr. Masters was wealthy, like her parents had been, but unlike Mr. and Mrs. Manson, he was extremely intelligent and sometimes surprisingly funny. She had gotten used to talking to him, and he had gotten used to talking to her. It was a unique friendship.

Turning the dial several times, she waited for the phone to ring.

Nearly a thousand miles away, sitting on a reclining chair in his home in Madison, Wisconsin, Vlad Masters picked up the phone. "Hello, Samantha."

"Hello, Mr. Masters," she said with a smile. "How are you?"

"I'm doing very well, thank you," he answered. "And you?"

"Um…." Samantha looked over her shoulder to make sure the room was completely empty. "I'm…okay—"

"What has he done now?"

Samantha sighed. "He hasn't really done anything," she explained. "It's just—I get lonely sometimes, and I'm—…."

"Yes?" She could almost picture the older man frowning. "Go on."

"I think," Samantha breathed. "I think I want to leave."

There was a slight pause. "You want to leave your husband?"

"No!" she said, almost offended by the thought. "I love him more than anything!"

"But you want to leave Colorado," Vlad deduced.

"I want to be able to make friends with neighbors and have people over for dinner," she explained. "I just feel so isolated."

"Well, that can be arranged quite easily. I haven't yet gotten around to selling my home in Amity Park," he explained. "You'll be able to see old friends who haven't left town."

"Who still lives there?"

"Well, for one, Valerie Gray," Vlad said with a chuckle. "Still protecting the town."

Samantha rolled her eyes. "That's just what we need."

Vlad laughed. "Danny seems to me like the type of person who needs a good, healthy dose of challenge in his life."

Samantha laughed with him. "Very true, Masters."

"I'll start having people clean the house up for you tomorrow," the older man said. "You can move in whenever you like."

"Vlad," Samantha sighed, twirling the phone cord around her finger. "You have no idea what this means to me."

"Anything for you, my dear," he replied. "You're the only one who calls to make sure I'm still alive."

Samantha grinned into the receiver. "Someone's got to look after you."

It was, indeed, a very unlikely relationship, Samantha decided as she hung up the phone, but it kept her sane.

She trailed into her bedroom to find her husband already asleep on his side of the bed. She changed into her nightgown and, after turning off the lights, climbed into bed beside him.

"Sam?" he queried tiredly in the dark. Sam could feel him roll closer to her.

She didn't answer.

"How'd it go?"

"The call?" she asked. "Vlad's doing okay."

There was a moment of silence. "Just okay?"

"Since when have you been this interested?"

"I…." Samantha listened to the inflection of his voice, but besides a slight crack, his tone was casual. "I don't know. I'm just curious."

Again, Samantha didn't know what to say, so she allowed his voice to trail off without answer.

"Sam?"

Samantha was almost annoyed, now. "What?"

"I love you." She heard him sniffle slightly. "You know that, right? I love you?"

She froze, turning over in the bed to look at him. She could almost see his blue eyes glowing beside her and a muscular arm snaked out towards her waist.

Looking into his eyes, she replied, "I love you too, Danny."

**Sunday, 8:30 PM**

Samantha was again eating dinner alone. This night, it was canned soup with old baguette. She was reading a book she had found in Vlad's bookshelf entitled "Relationships for Rich Creepy Dimwits." It wasn't really her type of thing, but she had found it rather funny when she saw an old bookmark sticking out of the middle and assumed that once upon a time, many years ago, Vlad had read it. The soft pitter patter of feet on carpet alerted her of her husband's approach.

"Honey?" she called.

Danny appeared around the corner. "What's tonight?"

"Chicken noodle," she replied, returning her attention to her book.

Danny sat down at his usual seat across from Samantha and sniffed his bowl of soup. He scrunched his nose. "Canned?"

Samantha only nodded absently as she read on.

"What's that?"

Samantha looked up to see her husband's brows furrowed together. "Hmm? What's what?"

"What's _that_?" He pointed at her book with his spoon. "What are you reading?"

"Oh." She flipped the book halfway closed so she could read the cover. "Just something I found."

"Why are you reading at the table?" came the unexpected response.

"I…," she started. "I was alone—"

"I work hard all day and my wife doesn't give me any attention at all!" he said.

"I didn't know you wanted my attention," she snidely remarked. "You were the one who told me to leave you alone!"

"What is it you're reading, anyway? One of Vlad's books?"

Samantha threw her hands into the air. "It doesn't matter!"

"Give me that." Danny snatched the book away from her and read the cover. "Oh, God," he moaned. "What the hell are you doing with this?"

"I just found it lying in the shelf, that's all!" Samantha was growing furious with Danny's confusing emotions.

Danny's eyes flicked from the book to his wife. "Do you know how sick this is?"

"Sick?" Samantha said. "Sick like how? It's just a normal book!"

"A normal book Vlad was reading when my mom was alive—when he _lured_ us to this house!"

"Calm down, Danny—I didn't know," Samantha whispered, lowering her eyes.

She raised them furiously when her husband mocked her shaking voice.

"Oh!" he cried in a falsetto voice. "You didn't _know_! Of course you didn't know!"

Samantha raised her hands into the air. "It's just a damn book, Danny!"

Danny's eyes flashed a malignant green and he slammed a glowing fist into the book. His hand left a burning hole in the hard back cover. Samantha jumped out of her chair, holding it in front of her in a defensive motion. Her purple eyes were wide with shock.

The corners of Danny's mouth turned downward and suddenly, her husband inhaled a long, shaky breath. "Oh, God," he whispered, his eyes returning to their natural color. "Sorry."

Samantha could only stare.

He closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, I—I don't know what happened."

"You're tired," she said, still whispering.

Her husband only shook his head. "This place—it's driving me crazy."

"Listen—" she began. "We can move. Vlad told me he's giving us his other house."

"Other house?" he echoed.

"The one in Amity Park. We'll be near friends and family," Samantha explained. "We won't be so isolated."

"I don't want to—"

"Of course you do, Danny—I do!" Samantha smiled encouragingly, though she still had a tight grip on the back of her chair. "Last I heard, Tucker's still there."

"Tucker…." Danny's face betrayed his nostalgia.

"And Valerie…."

He gave her a sardonic glare. "Right. Because that's exactly what I need."

Samantha laughed. "That's exactly what I said."

Danny slumped in his seat. "Moving here was such a mistake." Meeting her eyes, he continued, "Give me a week to tie up loose ends with the patenting."

Samantha couldn't keep the grin off of her face. "Really?"

"Yes." The frown returned to his face. "But you can't bother me."

**Monday 5 PM**

Samantha heaved a cardboard box onto a table and slowly stood straight, massaging her aching back. Reaching for a glass of water on a nearby shelf, she sighed inwardly. She had only completed one room. She arched her back in a stretch and yawned pausing when she heard a muffled knocking. She followed the noise to its source: the front door.

She paused, glancing behind her as if to check if her husband was near. He wasn't; the foyer was dark and empty. She opened the door and frowned. No one was there.

"Hello?" she called. Her voice was lost against the howling winter wind.

No one answered. She squinted against the snow, but it was already growing dark and the porch light only extended ten feet into the distance. All that was visible to her was the blinding white of the snow.

"How strange," she said, shutting the door. She turned, the frown still plastered on her face, but stopped with a cry. In front of her stood a figure outlined by a slight glow. The figure stepped forward into the light and Samantha instantly recognized herself, a crazy grin smeared across her face. Her black, short hair was unkempt and her eyes shone a fierce purple. Her slim fingers were wrapped around the handle of a huge steak knife.

Samantha took a step backwards, her heart jolting, but found herself pressed against the front door. She choked out something unintelligible, unable to tear her eyes away from the apparition. The other Samantha thrust the knife forward towards her head. Samantha gasped and shifted away just in time. The knife had sunk halfway through the wood and, while her counter-self was busy pulling the knife out of the door, Samantha shoved her knee into her stomach and bolted.

"Danny!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "Danny help!"

She sprinted towards his study and burst through the door, unable to keep her eyes from welling with tears.

"What the hell?" Her husband looked up from his paperwork to find her panting and out of breath.

"Danny—she's coming—she tried to kill me! She—" Samantha choked on a sob.

Danny didn't immediately understand. "Who?"

"She's coming—! She's got my knife!" Samantha yelled frantically, shaking with fear.

"Who is it, Sam?" Danny hadn't moved from his seat. "Who's coming?"

"A woman—a ghost! She tried to stab me in the foyer!"

Danny rose from his seat. "There are no ghosts here," he said, his voice ringing with confidence.

Samantha broke out into tears. She hid her face from him with her hands and continued to shake. Danny made no move to comfort her. He left the foyer, dragging his wife by her wrist through the house.

When they arrived in the foyer, Samantha was surprised to see it empty. "She was here," she said, blinking away a haze of tears. She ran to the front door to find the knife mark. She traced the door with her finger, but it was free from any marks at all. "She was here, I swear."

She spun when a growl erupted from her husband. His blue eyes were coursing with fury and his hands twitched at his sides.

"Danny, I wouldn't make it up," she whispered. "You know. You _know_ I wouldn't."

"I don't—" Danny stopped when his voice cracked and Samantha cringed at the pure malice in his voice, "I don't know what you're getting at, Sam."

"Dann—"

"No!" His shout rang through the vast house. "Is it attention?" he asked. "Is that what you want?"

Samantha's eyes widened when he grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a rough shake. "You're hurting me!" she yelped, shrinking away in his grip.

He gave her one more shove and released her. She fell, catching herself with her hands.

"I'll give you attention, Sammy," her husband said, his voice cracking again. "Just bother me one more time when I'm working, and I promise—all I'll be able to think about is you."

His tone chilled her to the bone. She knew he wasn't referring to the attention she wanted. It was a different type of attention on his mind entirely.

He stalked out of the room, leaving her to her thoughts.

**11 PM**

"Hello?" Samantha was curled up in her favorite chair, phone in hand. "Hello? Vlad?"

The surrounding rooms were completely dark. The only light came from the lamp beside her, illuminating only half the room, leaving the rest in large shadows.

"Samantha?" came the surprised reply. "Is it Thursday already?"

"No." She couldn't stop the sniffle.

"It's Danny." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

Samantha swallowed a sob. "He was really angry."

"He didn't hurt you, though, my dear," Vlad said. "Right?"

Samantha shook in her seat, trying to force back the tears. Her throat ached like she had swallowed something much too large for her esophagus.

"Right?" Vlad's voice was suddenly very urgent.

She shook her head, even though she knew the billionaire couldn't see her. "No, he didn't," she breathed.

"Then—?"

"I don't want him to be angry, Vlad," she said quietly. "Sometimes it scares me."

"_He_ scares you?"

"No!" she shouted. "He loves me. I know he would never hurt me. But—…."

"But…?"

"I think it's his emotions," she whispered. "He lets them control him."

A pause. "Your husband never was one for thinking before acting." She could almost picture him sitting all alone in his Wisconsin house. "If I may, my dear, I'd like to give you some advice—"

She waited for him to continue, but he never did. She waited, her brows furrowing when moments and then seconds passed by with no noise. She held the phone away from her ear when the dial tone beeped loudly.

She turned to the table to find the phone and found a finger holding the switch hook down. She looked up to see her husband looming over her.

"It's late," he said simply, his voice deep and ringing.

Samantha set down the phone. "Why did you do that?"

He didn't meet her eyes. "I don't know what's happening to me, Sam." When she didn't answer, he said, "Come to bed."

She gave him an unreadable look.

"Please?"

She stood to her full height, a several good inches shorter than him. He walked his wife into their bedroom and together they lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep.

**Tuesday, 3 AM**

Samantha woke to an unending scream. She jolted to a sitting position to find her husband still asleep, but yelling at the top of his lungs.

"No!" was the only intelligible word he used in a string of consonants and vowels.

"Wake up!" Samantha shook him by his shoulders as hard as she could. "Danny, you're dreaming! Wake up!"

The yelling stopped and his eyes slowly opened. Splotches of wetness clung to his lower lashes.

"Sam—" he muttered, his voice hitching in his throat. "I—the most terrible dream—"

"You're all right now," she said softly.

"So—_horrible_," he went on as if he hadn't heard. "I dreamed—" He looked his wife in the eyes, his own widening in terror. "I dreamed I killed you."

Samantha recoiled from him as if his skin burned her. "It—it was just a dream," she said.

"With my own hands, Sam. I was _doing_ it. I can't—"

"I'm going to get a drink," she said weakly, sliding out of bed.

"No! Don't leave!" he cried. "I would never hurt you, Sam—you know I wouldn't!"

She left the room anyway.

**7 PM**

Samantha was still packing. She had completed boxing up half of the house. All filled boxes she moved to the front of the house next to the door to make it easier for when they left.

She ate dinner alone. Danny didn't appear once. After she cleared her plate, she washed the dishes and went to bed early. She couldn't sleep, so she stayed up all night staring in the dark at the ceiling.

Danny never came to bed.

**Wednesday 12 PM**

Samantha had just finished lunch when she heard a creak in the floorboards. She hadn't seen hide nor tail of her husband since early Tuesday, when he'd had the nightmare.

"Danny?" she called, expecting her husband to appear around the dining room archway. No answer.

The house creaked constantly, but no one ever showed. Samantha had never felt so alone.

**9 PM**

Samantha still saw no sign of Danny. Shivering, she drew her sweater tight around her arms and sniffed. She was going to have to find him.

"Danny?" she called loudly, but got no answer. "Da-nny!"

Soon she had searched every room in the house but one: her husband's study.

The door was slightly ajar; if he was inside, surely he would have heard her calling….

She hesitantly took a step towards the door. "Danny?" Samantha's voice echoed around the room.

She pushed the door open to reveal a large empty room, lined with books and papers and scrap metal. In the far corner of the room was a desk, angled to face the opposite corner. An open door on another wall revealed a dark closet with papers and a briefcase falling out of it.

Samantha neared his desk. There couldn't be any harm in simply looking at his work—the work that consumed most of her husband's life.

From a typewriter sitting on the desk protruded a sheet of standard patenting paper. The sheet resisted her pull, but after a particularly harsh tug, she was able to read what Danny had written. Her eyes widened in horror.

"Danny Phantom shouldn't have to work," typed on top of already printed words, was the first sentence. And the second sentence. And the third sentence. And the fiftieth sentence. She turned to a thick stack of typed papers next to the typewriter and flipped through them. The sentence filled the second page and the third page and the fourth page and the fifth. Samantha cut the stack in half to reveal that the 475th page was also filled with the same line. He had jumped off the deep end_._

There was a rustling of papers behind her, and she spun. Her husband stood, leaning against the closet door jam, a strange twinkle in his eye and an uncertain smile on his face.

"Hello, Sam," he said, his voice causing the hairs on the nape of her neck to rise.

Samantha backed away from the desk as he stepped forward. "Danny, what is this?" she whispered.

"It's my work, Sam," he answered, closing the space between them.

Samantha didn't allow him to get any closer; she backed away around the corner of the desk, a clear line between her and the door. She felt around behind her as she stepped backwards, and her hands hit cold metal. She pulled out from behind her a large ecto-gun and held it to her chest.

"Why?" was her pained answer.

He didn't respond, but took another step closer. Samantha found the trigger of the gun with her fingers and backed as quickly as she could out of the room, aiming the gun at her husband. Her heart broke as she did so and she whimpered as tears left streaks down her face.

"Don't come any closer," she said, waving the gun around.

"You're not going to shoot me," Danny said, still advancing. "Put that down."

Samantha began to sob. "Don't—hurt me!"

Danny's fingers twitched at his side and he laughed. "Darling, honey, I wouldn't hurt you," he told her. There was just a hint of exasperation in his voice. "Baby, Light of my Life, I love you more than anything in the world! I wouldn't _ever_ hurt you—I just…."

Samantha felt her heart constrict when his eyes glowed an ugly green.

"I just…," he paused, his face betraying an internal conflict, "want to bash your head in."

He held his glowing, tensed hands out in front of him, reaching towards her.

"Stop!" Samantha screamed, her fingers shaking on the trigger. "Stop moving! Get away!"

"Give me the gun, baby," he ordered, his voice echoing in her ears.

Samantha felt her heart break again, into tiny pieces. His pitiful eyes compelled her to give in and hand it over.

Danny stepped even closer, reaching forward for the gun. "Sweetheart, give me the gun."

His hands inches away from the barrel of the gun, she pulled the trigger. An ecto-blast hit his hand and he pulled back with a pained yell. He was holding his burnt hand close to him when she shot him again, point-blank, in the chest. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell with a sickening _thud_ to the floor.

Samantha looked down at her husband and sobbed. She loved her husband, but she knew, looking down at the malicious smile still on his face, that it was no longer her husband that lay before her. It was insanity.

**Thursday, 2 AM**

She had zapped him with the Plasmius Maximus, set for the maximum amount of five hours. She dragged him to a storage closet, even as he began to stir. He was heavy, but the tile floor made it easy for her to pull him by his feet. When she had only a few more feet to go, he began to groan in agony.

She pulled even harder.

"S—Sam?" he sputtered.

He was almost completely inside.

"Sammy?"

She dropped his feet and stepped over her husband to exit the closet. His fingers brushed her ankle.

"What're you doing?"

She shut the door with a clang and locked it from the outside with a small key.

"Sammy." His moan was muffled by the door.

"What?" her voice was broken and thin.

"Sammy, I think you've hurt me," he said. "I'm so dizzy—I need…a doctor."

"I'm…." Samantha couldn't hold back her tears. "I'm leaving, now. We'll get you a doctor when I have help."

Suddenly his voice was angry and shouting, making it clear that the only doctor he needed was a psychologist ready with prescription drugs. "You can't leave!" he laughed crazily. "You can't ever leave!"

Samantha blinked at the door, bolting from the room when Danny began to pound on it. She ran to the garage rooms and tried to find a vehicle she could use. She ran to the SUV room, ignoring the fact that she was morally opposed to such cars, and gasped. The hoods of both shiny black cars were open and broken wires dangled out. She slammed the door to that particular garage shut and ran to the next room. The helicopter room. She didn't know how to fly a helicopter, but she could learn. She jumped inside of the slick, black vehicle, only to find the dashboard literally dashed. There were slash marks running through it, and it crackled a little with the electricity of broken circuits.

She ran inside to find the only phone in the house: the one she used to talk with Vlad. She raced to the foyer and, picking it up, began to dial.

She held the receiver to her ear, but heard nothing. She looked down. The cord was cut.

She screamed a blood-curdling scream and threw the phone against the wall. There was no way to contact anyone. _Except…_, she told herself, thinking fast on her feet.

She ran to the kitchen and turned on the gas stove. Tiny flames burst into life from the surface and Samantha spun in search of something to trigger the fire alarm. She opened drawer after drawer to find something wood or flammable, but finally decided on a loaf of frozen bread she found in the freezer. She threw it, plastic and all, onto the stove and waited.

**5 AM**

The bread had started to smoke just as Samantha heard a distant, terrifying crash. She jumped to her feet. The door holding Danny back was down.

She tried to wave the smoke towards the smoke alarm, but to no avail. There wasn't enough of it.

"_Sam!_" her husband's voice echoed throughout the house. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

She ran, noiselessly and senselessly, from the sound of his voice and hid behind a sofa in the dark family room. From the kitchen from which she had just escaped, she heard footsteps and a laugh.

"Very clever, darling!" he yelled to make sure she could hear. "But I disconnected the fire alarm, too!"

Samantha ran from the room to her bedroom to get to the weapons supply in the closet. She dug through the closet for whatever wasn't broken. In the end, all she could find was a small, one barrel ecto-gun. She held it close and ran to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

"Sa-_am_!" Her husband's voice made the walls around her shake. "Where _are_ you?"

She spotted the window above the toiled seat and tried to open it. It creaked slightly as it opened and stopped halfway. She stuck her head through, but her shoulders wouldn't fit. She pulled out and tried again to open it, but the window frame was jammed.

"I hear you!"

Samantha grunted in exertion, trying with all her might to open the window. A loud bang on the door made her jump. Another, and she heard the door crack. She shot at the window with the gun, wheezing in terror. The glass didn't break. She struck it with all her might with the gun handle. A panicked sob escaped her when Danny's glowing green hand busted through the door. She struck the window again and this time, the window shattered.

"What are you doing in there?"

Samantha whimpered at the sound of his voice. One more bang and a panel of the door crumbled. The wood splintered open and she could see his grinning face.

She looked down from the broken window; she was very high up. Her husband punched the door one more time with a glowing fist and it broke completely. With one last glance at Mr. Fenton, she jumped.

* * *

**A/N: **So many review for the last chapter! Yes, it was a Clockwork Orange crossover. I didn't know that many people had seen it. I definitely had to scrub my eyes with soap after watching it. Anyway, about this chapter: one night, I was sick in bed. It was late, and I was bored. So I watched a horror movie. Bad idea. I woke up at least five times during the night. At least it gave me some inspiration to write and I was able to produce this strange melding of Danny Phantom and an 80's horror flick. I think this is the longest chapter I've ever written.


	23. Teen Titans

**Teen Titans**

DP: Pre-season Three

* * *

The moon hung low, just above the city skyline. Stars twinkled brightly in the cloudless sky. Several miles from the city's shoreline was a single building centered on a tiny island. Waves rained down upon the single circular strip of sandy beach surrounding the building serenely. On the roof of the building, a modern twentieth century steel and glass structure modeled in the shape of a large T, stood a lone figure keeping watch over the city. A simple mask kept his identity safe from view while his long dual colored cape swayed proudly behind him in the soft breeze. He was, in his current stance, the epitome of heroism.

The real reason that he stood watch over Jump City, however, was not because he needed to stand guard, but simply because he could not sleep. He squatted in the corner of the tower facing the city, end finally ended up sitting, his back firmly resting against the short railing. Jump City was beautiful at night. The night sky was painted an array of navy blues and purples and the outlines of the dark black skyscrapers of the city just barely be picked seen. There were very few cars on the road and the flickering of moving lights had stopped several hours ago. It was very, very late.

The hero's eyes had almost drifted closed when a distant echo of a scream echoed through the suburbs. His eyes shot open and he was immediately on his feet, his staff in the firm grip of his hand. Someone was in trouble and yet the tower alarm had not been triggered. He glanced down beneath his feet at the cement floor, the ceiling to the top story of the Titan Tower. Images of his comrades sleeping soundly beneath him several stories down danced through his mind, and the thought waking them up for something he knew he could handle on his own repulsed him.

Backing away ten steps from the edge, he took a running leap through the air and spread his cape like wings as he dove head first towards the mainland. Wind whooshed past his ears and forced his unruly black hair away from his forehead. With his cape, he was able to change the trajectory of his fall. He was still heading towards the water, but he was near enough to the city to shoot a grapple hook at a nearby building. The grapple hook clung to a steel support and swung him to the ground on his feet, bending his knees to soften the momentum of his fall and steadying himself with a hand. With another grapple hook, he was able to reach the top of a small building and from there, the roof of a bank. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, scanning the ground beneath him for any sign of movement. A deep voice sent him sliding on his feet to jump in a different direction.

"What's a girl like you doin' out so late, anyway?"

The dark haired hero peered over the ledge of a brick red apartment complex to find in a dumpster alley three figures distorted by the shadows of the main road street lamps. One was a tall, muscular man in a forest green ski mask, a knife in one hand and a flashlight in the other. The knife was pointed towards a small, trembling dark haired girl standing protectively over the third figure, a tall man in business attire on the ground, leaning against the wall. She couldn't have been more than thirteen, and, from what the hero could see, the man behind her was unconscious.

"I...," the girl began, choking up. She seemed to be out of breath and her voice was shrill and weak. "I don't have any money."

The mugger gestured to the unconscious man with the flashlight. The man was obscured no longer by the shadows and the hero could see him clearly. He was dirty and unshaven, and his clothes were torn at the seams.

"You do that?" the mugger asked.

The girl glanced at him and shuddered. Her answer was a slight shake of her head.

The mugger shook his knife threateningly at the girl and aimed the flashlight at her. "Give me his wallet."

The girl's shoulders rose and fell as a soft sob escaped her throat. "We need it. We don't"—she was crying, now—"we don't have anything else."

"I need it, too!" said the mugger. The knife glinted maliciously in the yellow light. "Give me the wallet!"

She only shook her head and brought her hands to her face. In the soft light of the flashlight, still standing on the rooftop, the hero could barely see that her fingertips were covered in a viscous green substance. When she removed her hands from her face, the bridge of her nose was smeared with it.

The mugger seemed not to notice. "Give me the money, girl, or I'll—"

"You," the hero said, finally deciding to make an appearance, "will not be doing anything but sitting safely behind bars."

The mugger's eyes widened. "You!" he said. The hero simply crossed his arms. "I—I can explain! My apartment was destroyed in one of your fights—I need money!"

The hero shook his head, almost embarrassed for the pitiful excuse for a thief. "So you chose to steal it from a little girl? Save your explanation for the police."

In a spontaneous decision, the mugger swung his knife at the hero. The hero simply dodged to the side and, swinging one leg at the mugger's ankles, brought him crashing to the ground. The knife clattered uselessly to the ground at the hero's feet. In one swift motion, the hero had the mugger tied to the back of dumpster, out of plain sight.

The mugger was appalled. "You can't just leave me here!"

"Try and stop me," the hero said, turning his back on him and sprinting towards the girl and the fallen man.

The girl, a head shorter than him, looked up into his masked eyes, her own large, light blue eyes wide. "Who are you?"

The hero held a gloved hand out towards her, smiling in a way he thought would comfort her. Her tired eyes were lined with deep bags, and her breathing was still not quite regular. He tried to look past the dirty green that was smudged all over her face and clothes, but he couldn't help but notice that there was something disturbing in the way it caked around her features. If it had been red, he would have automatically thought it was blood.

"I'm Robin," he said when she eyed his hand skeptically. He was trying to sound as friendly as he could. "Did—did the thief hurt your father?"

The girl's eyes narrowed. "My father?" Her voice cracked. She glanced down at her feet to see the unconscious man exactly where she had left him. "No."

"What happened to him?"

To Robin's dismay, the girl shoved his hand away before bringing her own to her face and falling to her knees, sobbing. Her back heaved up and down as she struggled to breathe.

"Uh—" Robin regretted not waking his friends to help him. Thieves and villains, he could handle, but children were a much different story. "Um…where is your home?"

There was a pause in sobs before she began to whimper and shake. Robin froze in horror.

"Please don't cry," he said. "If you just tell me where you live, I can call your mother."

Robin's heart stopped when she began to cry as if it was the worst thing he could have possibly said at that moment. He had never felt so awkward. Her breaths became long and deep as she tried to calm herself down.

"Just—" she said, startling Robin. "Just get Vlad somewhere safe."

"Vlad?" Robin said, glancing once more at the unconscious man. The man's long, chiseled face was turned to the side against the wall, away from him. "Sure, we can get him to the hospital."

The girl shook her head wildly. "No hospitals," she said.

Robin frowned. "But he's sick."

"No hospitals," she repeated. "No hospitals."

"But—" Robin frowned. Who wouldn't want a hospital? "But he needs a doctor."

"He's...only unconscious," she said after a pause. "We just need someplace to stay. For a night."

He glanced up at her. "You don't have a home?" When she shook her head, Robin could only frown. "I'm afraid I can't help you, there." There was no way he would bring a stranger to the Titan Tower.

She averted her eyes and blinked several times. "But—we don't have anywhere else."

Robin felt shivers race down his spine as tears began to well in her eyes once more. She struggled to choke back another sob. "We're—we're homeless."

His face grew cold when a tear fell from the corner of her eye.

"Oh no."

---

They took a designated Titan boat from the harbor to the tower. The girl helped Robin drag the man to the seaside.

"Why are you homeless?" Robin felt compelled to ask after he started the boat engine.

She turned to face him, her eyes blazing with a vague innocence. "I've always been homeless."

Robin's mouth fell at the corners when he felt something not adding up. "But your father," he said glancing at the man sprawled on one of the benches, "is wearing a…a _really_ nice suit."

She shrugged. "He's not homeless," was all she said.

"You don't live with him?" Robin said. He sat down at the wheel of the boat.

She returned her gaze to the water passing underneath them, but not without giving the man a look of disdain.

Robin felt his own dislike of speaking to strangers slip away as he struggled with the concept of someone being more mysterious than himself. "But why not?"

"Are you, like, a superhero?"

Robin's mask twisted with his furrowed brows. "Don't change the subject," he ordered.

"I'm not!" she said indignantly, covering her mouth when a yawn managed to make its way past her stoic façade. She ignored it and glared at him. "Well, are you?"

Robin's lips curved into a small smile. "You're not from here, are you?"

When she shook her head, he decided he would save the questions for when she was better prepared to answer them.

They reached the Titan Tower in ten minutes. As Robin pulled the boat into a hidden dock, he turned off the motor and began to tie it up. He turned to the girl with a sudden thought.

"I never asked you what your name was," he said.

The girl glanced up at him with heavy eyelids. "It's Danni," she said, yawning again, "with an 'i.'"

Robin gestured towards the man still lying on the ferry bench. "And your father's?"

"He's not my—well, I mean…." She fought a quick internal battle before telling her savior, "His name is Vlad."

Grunting in exertion, Robin dragged Vlad by his underarms to the sandy beach. When he reached Danni, he dropped Vlad for a quick break. He noticed her gazing up at the tower before her.

"It's nice, huh?"

"You live here?" she said, her dirty tearstained face the definition of amazement.

"Yes," Robin said, bending back down to pick up the man at his feet.

"On an island all by yourself?"

Robin chuckled softly and placed a hand on the hand identification system. "With my friends," he said. As he waited for the door of the tower to open, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her staring worriedly at her reflection in the two way mirror window.

"Oh no," she moaned, scrubbing away at the green on her face with saliva and a small index finger, only to realize that her fingers were also coated with the stuff.

Though the door was already opened, Robin turned to face her. "What is the green stuff?"

She twisted away from the mirror immediately as if he had startled her. "I don't know. Dirt?"

She was a good liar, Robin suspected, but her words had come out too fast. He let it slide and turned back to the doorway. "Help me get him to the elevator," he said.

She nodded and bent down to scoop up the unconscious man's feet in her small arms. It was a struggle, but eventually, the three of them were all in the elevator together.

"Where do we get to sleep?" Danni asked.

Looking at her for the fist time in real light, Robin shook his head. He had never been quite sure of anything when it came to children, but as he gazed at her youthful face he felt he had never been so sure of anything in his life: "Danni, first you need a shower."

--

As soon as he was sure she had a change of clothes—an old tee shirt with a bright yellow R on the left chest and a too-small pair of black cotton draw-string shorts he found in a drawer of his room—and had reached the showers, Robin turned his attention to the unconscious man they left still leaning against the elevator wall. With great effort, Robin eventually managed to heave him to the Titan laboratory and onto a medical examination table.

The man stirred in his sleep and breathed faintly, but otherwise gave no evidence to indicate he was alive. Robin bit his lip as he stared down at the man. Underneath his shredded, coal black Armani suit were signs of lacerations. But it wasn't simple cuts that worried the hero the most; burns and scorch marks spotted his chest and arms. Under the man's chin, Robin found the skin of his neck blistered and raised. There was no trace of any of the green slime that coated Danni on the man outside of where she had touched him. Robin shook his head. It was too much. He would need his fellow titan's opinions to continue any further. For now, he was content to leave the man where he lay. Shutting off the lights, he turned from the room and vanished into the light of the hallway.

--

"Danni?" he called as the elevator door opened on his own floor. "Where'd you go?"

A giggle bubbled from behind him and he spun. Danni stared up at him, all the dirt and grim washed away. Her face was now a normal, tanned peach, but her eyes were still tired.

"How'd you sneak up on me like that?" Robin said.

She smiled. "I was here the whole time," she said.

Robin smirked. "Funny." Taking her by the hand, he said, "Let's get you to bed."

She twisted playfully out of grip. "But I'm not tired!"

"It's almost sunrise," Robin said. "You should at least try to sleep."

She fell into step beside him as he walked down the long hallway. "What about you?"

"I'm going to sleep, too," he reassured her, leading her to the guest bedroom.

She stopped suddenly beside a large metal door. "Where does this go?" she said and before he could even see where she was going, she had already pressed the door release button. The door slid up into the ceiling and Robin felt a pang of annoyance.

"Don't go in there!" he said.

But she was already inside jumping onto the large, king sized bed draped in black and red sheets. "Why?" she said as she bundled the covers around herself, yawning and falling back onto the pillows.

"Because that's"—Robin felt his voice grow weak as he found himself too tired to put up much of a fight against the little girl—"…my room…."

He followed her into the room and found, to his dismay, that her eyes had already closed and she was breathing softly.

"No," he said, "you can't sleep here."

The only answer he received was a soft snoring from her too-tiny nose.

Robin turned from the room and angrily stalked out into the hallway, the door closing shut behind him. He didn't feel completely safe leaving a little girl alone with a room full of weapons, but with a strange man in the Titan Tower Lab, he didn't feel as though he had much of a choice. Determination scrawled all over his face, he lifted his arm to his face.

"Titans," he said after pressing a button on his watch. He didn't know how many of them would readily wake at four in the morning, so he pressed the watch alarm button again.

"Titans," he growled into the speaker of the watch.

A groggy Beastboy was the first to appear on screen. "Robin?"

The green boy's voice was scratchy and his hair was unkempt, but Robin paid no mind, as the second face appeared.

"What is it, friend Robin?" It was Starfire her red hair was also unkempt, but otherwise, she looked wide awake.

Cyborg and Raven appeared at close to the same time, but Cyborg only groaned and Raven remained completely silent.

"Meet me in the lab," Robin said simply before ending the connection.

He took the stairs to the lab and was the first one there. Raven was second, as she materialized beside him. Her eyes widened when she found her Titan leader standing over the stranger on the medical table.

Starfire entered the room next. "Who is that?" she said, pointing at the unconscious man.

Robin waited until all the Titans were present before saying, "I need help."

There was a pregnant pause before Cyborg finally responded. "What happened to him?"

"There are two humans in the tower," Robin said. "This one, and one…in my room." The reluctance dripped from his words. "I was on the roof when I heard a scream in the city, and I didn't want to bother your sleep, so I went in alone."

"You should never hesitate to wake us up," Raven said, her voice a dull monotone.

"Yeah, man," Cyborg agreed. "That ain't right."

If it would have made a difference, Robin would have rolled his eyes. "Sorry. Next time I will."

"So what happened?" Beastboy said, rubbing his eyes to stay awake.

"This man and a young girl were being mugged," Robin said.

Beastboy scratched the back of his head. "So the thief knocked him out?"

"No," Robin said, shaking his head. "The funny thing was, he was unconscious before I got there, and the girl claimed that neither she nor the thief had done anything to him."

"Did she tell you who did?" Starfire asked, staring down at the unconscious man.

Robin only shook his head. "She was tired—I let her sleep. But I don't think she was lying. Look at his burns. A simple thief and a little girl wouldn't be able to do that."

He directed their gazes towards the blistered skin on the man's neck and the holes in his jacket.

Beastboy whistled. "Ouch."

"Does he have ID?" Cyborg said.

Robin's face lit up. "Good thinking, Cyborg." He reached into the pockets of the man's Jacket to find his wallet. He found a sting ray skin wallet and opened it. There were at least ten credit cards lining its pockets. Robin sifted through them all to find his driver's license. He didn't have one, but a company card was able to make up for it.

"Name Vlad Masters," Robin said, turning to Cyborg. "Does that mean anything?"

Typing into the keyboard on his arm, the half robot said, "Let me check."

"And what about a company called Axion?"

"One at a time!" Cyborg said. All the Titans gave him their attention when he whistled. "The man's a billionaire!"

Robin frowned. "A billionaire?" he said softly.

"He owns several companies" Cyborg continued. "Axion's one of 'em!"

Robin's frown deepened. "Nice work," he said. "But what does it mean?"

"Uh, guys?" Raven finally spoke. "I think he's…waking up."

* * *

**A/N:** Hello. This is YNSB, a Danny Phantom fanfiction writer who has seen the show Teen Titans only once before. Can someone please tell me who the heck Dick Grayson is? That would be amazing. Yes, I've read many of the Teen Titan crossover fics and I've always toyed with the idea of doing one of my own. The only thing that held me back was that one, like Harry Potter, it's a little overdone, and two, there are FIVE main characters of that show. I was home alone and I caught my first episode today, and, well... it's an okay show. I mean, a major plus is that is has a catchier theme song and cooler background music than DP. I tried really hard to make this crossover original, and I would very much appreciate a response. :) Thank you!


	24. The Incredibles

**Incredibles**

**

* * *

  
**

Smearing a chunk of Chapstick onto her lips, she jerked the key from the ignition and just sat in the car, glaring at the house in front of her. She hated being at home. She wanted nothing more than to live under a roof of her own, away from her parents. In this respect, she was a typical eighteen old girl. Her younger brother annoyed her, she believed her youngest brother—even though he was only six—was single handedly ruining the family, her mother was overly analytical about everything, and her father was both narcissistic and a little absentminded. She wanted more than anything to get a real job or go to a university. Jumping out of the car, she ambled slowly to the front door.

"Mom?" she called, setting her purse and keys down on a table in the living room. "I'm home."

"Where were you today, Violet?" her mother's thick, maternal voice called. "We missed you today. There was a robbery down on fifty first."

"Sorry," Violet said, entering the kitchen to find her family already eating dinner. "I was…busy."

Her younger sibling jumped up from his seat, full of energy. "Yeah, Vi, and there were three of them! With guns and they were all like—!"

"Dash, shut up and pass the gravy."

Dash passed the gravy to his younger brother, but his mouth never stopped moving. Violet took a seat next to her youngest brother.

"…And then—and then, bam! He was flying through the air like a helicopter!"

"Dash," his father said absently as he read the newspaper, "keep it down, will you? You're giving me a headache."

"So, did you get anything in the mail?" Violet said, her face hopeful.

Her mother looked at her father and her father set down the newspaper, his attention diverted.

"Uh…."

"They don't want to give you any money, Violet," her youngest brother said, waving a thin envelope he procured from his pocket.

"Jack Jack, give me that!" His mother's arm stretched from across the table and snatched it out of his hand.

"What!" Violet, stood and slammed her hands on the edge of the table. "No! Let me read it!"

Her mother's arm once again stretched to an abnormal length and handed her the letter. Violet ripped it out of her hand and began reading it fervently.

"It's not that they don't want to help you, honey," her mother said as Violet's face melted into a pathetic expression of hurt. "The government just doesn't have the money right now."

"What does it say?" Dash asked. "I didn't get to see it!"

Violet sunk back down into her seat and dropped the letter. "He says if they paid for my college tuition, they'd have to pay for every Super's college tuition."

"It makes sense, though," her father said. "Sorry, honey. I wish _we_ had the money to pay."

"Did you read the part about still attending the classes though?" her mother said. "He said you're at a strict advantage—you can go to classes invisibly and learn."

"Yes, mom, I read that," Violet said. "But what am I supposed to do if I want to get a job? Am I supposed to say, 'sorry, I can't _prove_ I took any classes, so you'll just have to take my word for it'?" When no one answered, Violet stood up again. "You'd think that the government could have convinced a college to let _one_ student go to school for free without question, but I guess not."

With that, she left the kitchen and ran up the stairs to her room. Slinking down onto her bed, she brought her knees to her chest and her hands to her face. She hated crying, but tears would not stop welling in her eyes. A knock at her door made her wipe violently at her eyes with her sleeve.

"Vi? You in there?"

It was her mother. She didn't answer, but the door opened anyway.

"Violet?" Her mother's head peered first around the door and then the rest of her body followed after. She sat down on the bed next to her daughter, wrapping her arms around her.

"I know it doesn't seem very fair. You've done so much for this town," she said. Violet only sniffled when her mother brushed her dark hair back behind her face. "But, look, it's not the end of the world. You can still go to school. Your father and I have agreed that we will let you stay at home until you find a way to pay for college."

"But—but how am I supposed to pay?" Violet said.

"Just look around—there has to be a job that will make you money." Her mother patted her on the back and stood up. "You'll find a way. I know you will. Love you, darling."

She left the room closing the door behind her. Violet immediately stood up and, with one last glance behind her to make sure no one would notice, she climbed through the window.

She loved walking at night, with nothing but the dim light of the street lamps to guide her. It was always so peaceful. After such a long, horrible day, she found herself dragging her feet on the cemented road. Humming quietly to herself, she walked for a good fifteen minutes before something caught her eye. A newspaper had been littered, strewn across the road, and she picked it up and began to wander in search of a trash can. She was just about to toss it away when out of the corner of her eye she saw an advertisement in bold letters.

"ONE MILLION DOLLAR REWARD," it screamed. Violet immediately froze and scanned the rest of the ad.

"For the capture of Amity Park's Public Enemy Number One," she read aloud. Looking up at the dark, cloudless sky, she said, "Amity Park?"

She scattered the pages around to find the first page. It was a paper from her own city, but someone in Amity Park had clearly wanted this public enemy captured so badly, they were willing to pay to put an ad in a paper of a neighboring city. She thought wistfully about the prize. One million would be more than enough to pay for college _and _her own apartment. She almost began to cry again, however, when she saw the date. It was a paper from almost four years ago.

"Are you serious?" She wanted to scream. "Can this day get any worse?"

She was about to dump the entire paper in the trash, but a strange feeling kept her from throwing away the page with the ad. She glanced again at it and frowned. She had expected Amity's public enemy to be a large, burly man, or some stereotypical-looking villain, but the face of their enemy was very young. A dotted photograph of a boy no older than fourteen or fifteen floating through the air just above the unfamiliar city's skyline was stamped underneath the advertisement. Listed underneath the photograph was a date (marked almost four years ago) and a location for the drop-off of the captured boy. A strange curiosity suddenly overwhelmed her. She ripped out the phone number and threw the rest of the page away.

---

The first thing Violet did when she climbed back through her window was burst down the hallway to her father's study. He usually forbade anyone from entering that room, but she was willing to risk punishment, for it was the only computer in the house. She brought up a browser and typed "Amity Park Public Enemy" into search box. She clicked on the first link that appeared. An article containing a list of the names and pictures of all enemies of Amity Park appeared and Violet began to read, hope swelling in her chest. Almost all of the photographs were of strange, floating, menacing-looking people. In the middle of the list was the "Ghost Boy, Inviso-Bill aka Danny Phantom." Violet squinted at the photo to make sure that the boy on her computer was the same as the boy in the newspaper and clicked on his name.

There were several articles in the database about the "Ghost Boy," and Violet decided to read the most recent one. Her eyes widened when it described his most recent sightings: he still had not been stopped.

She did not even hesitate; she picked up the phone and dialed the number from the ad and began to tap her fingers impatiently.

Her heart leapt when she heard someone pick up. "Hello?" an annoyed and tired voice growled.

"Hello," Violet said, putting on her most adult voice. "I'm calling to inquire about an advertisement you ran in the newspaper."

There was a long pause. "May I ask," the man said, his tone both arrogant and entrepreneurial at the same time, "who is calling at such an indecent hour?'

"Oh!" Violet said. "Sorry, I forgot it was so late! My name is Violet, and I'm not from Amity Park, but I found this old newspaper with your ad in it."

"Forgive me, Violet," the voice on the other end of the line said, "but you're going to have to remind me which advertisement you're talking about."

"It said something about a million dollar reward?" she said. "Something about capturing the number one public enemy? I know, it's really old, but I was hoping the offer still stands."

The pause this time was even longer. "Sorry," the man on the other end said. "This just comes as a great surprise to me. I suppose…." For reasons unknown to Violet, the man chuckled. "I suppose the offer still stands. But let me assure you that many have tried," he said. "And none have succeeded."

"Well maybe I'll have better luck, then," Violet said. "I will call you when I capture him."

She jumped up, stifling a rising shriek of joy and turned off the computer. On the way out, she bumped into her father.

"What were you doing in my study?" he said.

Violet knew she would be scolded, but couldn't help smiling anyway. She threw her arms around her father and said, "I think I might have found a job!"

---

"So you won't even tell us _where_ you're going?"

Violet frowned and peered out of the car window at her parents. "No, mom. I'll tell you if I get the job. I'm just going to the interview. I can't be late!"

"Well, okay, then," her father said, leaning towards the car for a kiss. "'Bye, honey. We love you."

"Dad, I really can't be late!" Violet said, already beginning to back up.

Her father let go of the car and waved at her. "'Bye, then."

"'Bye, Dad!" she called. "'Bye, Mom!"

She didn't slow down to wait for their response, but sped up, her heart beating fast. This would be her first time using her powers away from her family as well as her first job. She felt a little remorse for having lied to her parents, but they couldn't know. They would want to come with her, or worse, they would tell her it was too dangerous a job.

The drive to Amity Park was little over two hours, so it wasn't as if she would be too far from home, anyway. If it turned out she did need help, Dash could probably reach her in less than ten minutes.

When she did reach Amity Park, she was comforted by the city and a little scared of her new surroundings at the same time. She passed a billboard welcoming her to the city and another billboard telling her she was safe in the new mayor's hands. She smiled back at the picture of the happy mayor, excited to begin her research of the city's plague: the Ghost Boy.

She parked in the parking lot of an old diner and, turning off the car, began to dig through the stack of papers in the passenger seat that she had printed at home.

Uncapping a pen with her teeth, she began to read. "Last spotted on 40th and Specter Street," she read aloud, circling the location. She went on to circle other pertinent things: "Seen with Casper High's Tucker Foley: non-hostile meeting, Foley brought in for questioning," "Red Huntress hurt after a fight with the Ghost Boy," "The Fentons were declared an authority on ghost weaponry last Thursday and handed a key to the city for their services. Mayor Masters has yet given comment."

Violet continued to circle phrases until she realized that some of the things she circled, and, indeed, most of the things she hadn't circled did not make much sense to her.

"Why is everything about ghosts?" she said aloud, her brows furrowed together. She was going to have to talk to three people: Tucker Foley, the Red Huntress (whoever _that_ was) and the Fentons.

Tucker Foley was not hard to find. She found his name on a simple search on the internet and found that, much to her surprise, he was her age, freshly graduated from high school. He was home for the summer, packing for college and lived on 113th and Poltergeist. With her GPS, Violet was able to find his house.

Foley opened the door on the third knock. Violet blinked in surprise. He was not who she was expecting. He looked very young for his age, wore thick black rimmed glasses, and a red beret. "Hello?"

"Hi," Violet said, extending her hand. "I'm Violet and I'm with…the press. I just have a few questions concerning the Ghost Boy?"

The boy's brown eyes darted around, almost as if he was fighting quick internal battle before he smiled, saying, "Sure. Come in."

She followed him to a couch in their living room.

"Please, don't mind the mess. Packing for college," he said. "You know how that is."

While he rolled his eyes in exasperation, Violet silently wished that she did. "Yes, well," she said, "I just wanted to ask what happened between this meeting between you and the Ghost Kid."

Foley looked slightly surprised. "I thought I told you guys already. He saved me from an attack. Nothing. Happened." He sighed. "Not that you'd choose to believe that."

Violet blinked. "Why wouldn't I believe that?"

"The whole media-versus-Danny-Phantom thing," he said. "I think it's gone a little too far, even for Mr. Masters."

She frowned. "I don't follow."

"Oh, okay, sure. If that's how it's going to be." Tucker Foley stood up. "Well, if that's all you wanted to talk about…."

After four years in high school, Violet knew when she was not welcome. "What I'm saying is," she said, trying to save herself, "all I want is to know more about this Danny Phantom."

Under her scrutiny, Tucker Foley froze. "Why do you think I'd know that much about him?" he said. "It's—it's not like we're friends or anything."

"I know, but—okay, so if you don't know anything about Danny Phantom, then could you tell me anything about this 'Red Hunter' girl? Maybe she'll know more about him."

Tucker's eyes suddenly blazed with fury. "I used to like her, but she also went too far trying to get the media to get the media on her side."

"Like how?" Violet asked.

"'Oh no! Danny Phantom is a menace—I think he broke my leg! Boohoo!'" he said, mimicking a girl's falsetto.

Violet shook her head and produced a printed paper from her bag. "But it says here that he also ruptured several of her organs with a blast or something."

"See?" Tucker said. "That's what I mean! You think that really happened? If the Ghost Boy wanted to do that he would have done it a long time ago!" He snatched the article from her hands. "She probably just fell off her hoverboard or something. What kind of news reporter are you, anyway?"

Suddenly, the floor under both their feet began to quake. Violet's reaction was quick: she glanced first at Foley and then the shaking light fixture above him before diving for him and knocking him to the floor. Foley shouted in protest, but was quieted when the glass of the light fixture shattered on the ground where he had been standing only moments ago.

"Oh my god," Foley said when the shaking of the ground stopped only moments later. "You saved my life."

"What was that?" Violet said, already squatting on her feet, on the defense. "An earthquake?"

Foley shook his head. "We don't have earthquakes," he said quietly. Springing to his feet, he offered her his hand and he pulled her up. She followed him to the door. "It must have been an attack."

He opened the door, and sure enough, people were screaming outside and running down the streets for their lives. Violet looked up, blinking away the sunshine, to see two figures in the sky.

"The Ghost Boy!"

Danny Phantom was in the sky, flying so fast, his figure was blurred. Right on his tail was a woman in red, who Violet could only assume was the Red Huntress. As he flew overhead, he glanced down, frowning first at Tucker, and then at Violet before he was blasted by a red beam of energy. He tumbled through the air, falling to the ground.

"Someone catch him!" Violet yelped, bringing her hands to her face in shock. She was almost sure that her "employer" wanted him alive.

But Danny Phantom phased through the ground, unharmed. Violet could only shake her head. She had only ever known her youngest brother to pull a feat like that. Glancing at the ground he had just phased through, she narrowed her eyes. This was her chance. When Tucker Foley looked over his shoulder at the woman who had saved his life, he could only scratch his head. She had disappeared.

Violet followed the airborne brawl, invisible. Upon request, Edna had made her several pairs of civilian clothes that could disappear along with a new Super Suit that she almost always wore underneath her clothes whenever she went out. She was wearing both now.

She studied Danny Phantom from behind buildings and bushes. The fight moved very quickly, so it was hard to follow, but taking out a pen and a pad of paper, Violet was able to write down several notes about the Ghost Boy's powers.

"He can fly, phase through walls, blast things with his hands, turn invisible—" here, Violet became a little worried she would be outmatched, but she kept writing—"and move objects with his mind…."

If he could phase through objects, how was she to catch him? It wasn't as if she could handcuff him to a tree; he would just escape.

"I wonder…," she breathed. Becoming visible, she tore off her civilian clothes, revealing a newly made black Super Suit, the little I still in the center of her chest. She donned her mask and rubbed her hands together. Throwing them out almost defensively, she created a purple shield between the flying red and black blurs. Instantly, the fight was over.

"What the—?" a feminine voice protested from behind the red mask.

Smiling, Violet twisted her shield, forming a purple glowing ball around the black suited boy.

"Hey!" he cried, pounding at the shield wall. It was a success. He was completely trapped. "Valerie!" he said. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not doing anything!" she yelled, also banging on the purple wall with two gloved fists. She looked around wildly to spot the slim form of Violet in her black jumper, standing on the ground with both hands up.

"You!" the Red Huntress said. "Who are you and what are you doing to him!"

Violet finished bringing the trapped boy to the ground, and without breaking her concentration on the shield, she glanced at the Red Huntress. "I think it would be best," she answered, "if you found your own public enemy to capture."

"My _own—_?" Valerie said, lowering herself to the ground next to the Ghost Boy. "Who do you think you are? That Ghost Boy is _mine_!"

"Not anymore," Violet said, her voice level. "Finders keepers."

Though Violet could not see her face, she could tell the woman behind the mask was fuming. Without warning, she raised her gun, the barrel pointed at Violet's face. "And losers weepers!" the Red Huntress yelled, her fingers pulling the trigger.

Violet reacted quickly. Putting up a second shield between herself and the other woman, she absorbed the blasts easily. They weren't bullets but energy rays, so it did not weaken her in the slightest. With a wave of one hand, she sent the shield away from her. It moved the Red Huntress back before she was ready, and, screaming, she was pushed until her back hit a tree. The shield faded when she slumped to the ground, out cold.

A chuckle sent Violet spinning to face her captive. A boy her age, maybe even a little older smiled back at her with eerie green eyes hidden under a mop of white hair. His jumpsuit echoed hers, though hers, Violet personally felt, was better made, for who could outdo Edna Mode?

"Thanks for saving me," he said. "I'm so tired, I think she would have beat me this time."

Violet blinked.

"Nice to meet you," he said, extending a hand, even though he was still encased in her purple shield. "You must be…?"

"_You_ must be mistaken," Violet said. "I'm not here to save you."

Phantom's lips curved down into a small frown and his hand dropped.

"I'm here to get rid of a public menace," she said, "and, more importantly, make money for college."

Phantom's teeth were clenched together, now. "And how are you going to do that?" he said, crossing his arms.

"With this," Violet said, simply pulling out her cell phone and the phone number from the advertisement.

She dialed the number on speakerphone.

"Hello?" the man on the other end said. "Violet?"

"Hello," she said, smiling when the smirk disappeared from her captive's face. "I have the Ghost Boy here with me right now."

A pause. "Incredible," the man said. "Truly incredible. Didn't you just call me this morning?"

"Yesterday night, sir," Violet said. "You sound surprised."

"Vlad!" Phantom suddenly shouted. "I knew you were behind this!"

"I'm not behind anything, dear boy," the man said through the phone. "I can't truthfully say I actually expected Miss Violet to actually capture Amity's number one enemy. But you have done very well, my dear. Might I ask where you are so that I may meet you?"

"Sure. I'm on Specter Street and 89th."

"I'll be there within five minutes," the man said. "Don't let him get away!"

"I won't," Violet said, grinning as she turned around to face Danny Phantom. "You can be sure of that."

She snapped the phone closed and tapped her fingers on her shoulder in anticipation for whoever had been on the other end of the line, or, more truthfully, the man's money.

* * *

**A/N: **I'm too tired to write a nice, flowing paragraph of explanation, so:

1. I didn't write this recently. I found it on my computer.

2. No, I don't have any plans for future writing.

3. No, I haven't even been reading fanfiction.

4. Yes, I really do have better things to do. Things that make me moolah, if you know what I mean. Moolah I need to support myself in the future.

5. If you feel compelled continue any of my stories—not just my one-shots, but any of the actual stories, PLEASE DO. Leave a review, don't leave a review, I don't care. Just go for it!

6. What have I been doing recently? School. That, and reliving last year by watching my favorite video blog, Dr. Horrible's. ("And Penny will see the evil me, not a joke, not a dork, not a failure/and she may cry, but her tears will dry when I hand her the keys to a shiny new Australiaaaaaaaaa.") Ahhh so cute! I really love Neil Patrick Harris, even he doesn't swing my way. I really really want them to make a sequel.

7. Bye bye, for an indefinite amount of time. I really hope you enjoyed what is quite possibly my last post.


	25. Incredibles Part Two

**Incredibles**

Starburstia, this is for you (there's also a note for you at the end)

**

* * *

**

As she stood, tapping her fingers in contemplation, her captive growled in frustration.

"This is just what I needed."

Tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, Violet raised an eyebrow behind her latex mask, unsure of how to respond to the expression of self pity on the boy's face.

"Look, whatever you think you're going to gain from this," he said, his eyes imploring and desperate, "you can't believe it—he's just manipulating you!"

"Oh, okay, I believe you then, 'Public Enemy Number One,'" Violet said in a falsely cheerful voice with a roll of her eyes.

Her sarcasm could have been a slap to the ghost's face with the look of shock he gave her. "What? The media's got it all wrong! You can't actually believe them—" He broke off with a frustrated chuckle, but almost instantly sobered. "Oh, suffering spooks."

Violet had seen too many faces of captive criminals set with that same grim determination not to know what her ghostly captive then planned to do; he was going to try to fight his way out.

He threw one hand back as if he was going to throw a baseball, but when he thrust it forward, what appeared was much more deadly. A powerful green blast beat against Violet's purple shield. And then another, and another, and another until she was forced to reinforce it with draining concentration.

Between each blast, the ghost drew closer to the shield, growling between clenched teeth, "Let—me—out—of—here—!" The force of the blasts grew stronger with each step closer he took.

Fourteen year old Violet would have cowered at the mere sight of a challenge like this, but the Violet of today was much more practiced, ten times more confident, and so, _so_ much more powerful. With a slight flick of both wrists, the purple dome encasing the ghost pulsed violently, and he was thrown back. He let out a gasp of surprise as he fell. He was quick to his feet, however, and Violet sighed when she realized that he wasn't going to make his capture easy for her.

She prepared herself for another onslaught of energy blasts, but her captive was, for the moment, curiously still. It took a brief pause on her part to notice his furious, furrowed eyes and bared teeth. He took a step forward, raising both hands, and Violet unconsciously took a step back.

"I am so not in the mood for this today," he said, anger seeping from his voice.

A smaller green replica of her own force field encased him, and he pushed it away from him with great force so that it hit the inside of hers. It was the strangest feeling, trying to shrink her force field against a growing one, and for a moment, it was strictly a battle of the most powerful. Leaning forward with her whole body, Violet smiled through her grimace when she felt her shield begin to bend his—she was clearly the more skilled when it came to shields—but her stomach sunk when she gazed into the ghost's eyes. Not only were they not glowing the neon green they were supposed to, they were shining a dull, icy blue. Sharp, agonizing coldness registered throughout Violet's entire body before she heard her shield crack and burst with a horrible keening sound and she was thrown back in a freezing explosion of blue. She vaguely felt a dull pressure on the back of her head and her vision grew hazy before it faded into darkness completely.

--

When she opened her eyes, it could have been seconds, minutes, even hours later, Violet wouldn't have been able to guess. She had to blink several times before she could even see shapes, and the ghost's rounded face slowly appeared before her eyes. He was gazing down at her with an expression that could only have been guilt.

"Oh, man, are you okay?" he said, his voice so much louder than it had been before. Violet could feel that he was uncomfortably close to her. She tried to tell him to back off, but her mouth wasn't working.

"I mean, your shield cut off my ghost sense, so I thought for sure you were a ghost, and…you aren't. What…what are you?" Here, he stopped himself. "What an awkward question to ask," he chided himself, glancing up for a beat before returning his worried gaze to her. "What I mean to say is, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Get back, villain…," Violet managed to sputter through the agony coursing through her brain. She let out an involuntary groan as she attempted to force her eyes to focus and ignore the acute pain pulsing at the back of her head. Her arms felt slightly numb, and she was more grateful than ever at the reinforced ribbing that Edna had insisted upon.

Phantom's expression soured, but he remained just as close. It was then that Violet became vaguely aware of her hair flying loosely around her face. When her brain finally began to process properly, she started. She was being _held, _very, very high in the air—the ghost was kidnapping her!

She gasped and began to flail her limbs about desperately. The back of her gloved hand hit the ghost in the side of the face, and he nearly let her go.

"Stop it!" he said, exasperated.

"Put me down this instant, Phantom," Violet said, the ghost's name reluctantly rolling off her tongue. She began to struggle even more and somehow managed to knee him in the chin. "Let me go! Let me _go_!"

With a yelp, he tightened his grip on her legs and upper arms. "Calm down!" the ghost yelled angrily, through clenched teeth.

"Let me go!" she cried again even louder, squirming in his grip.

"Sure about that?" the ghost growled, motioning for her to look down with his eyes.

But Violet didn't care that they were flying several hundred feet in the air—she had survived worse. Unfortunately, it was then that she noticed a menacing figure not too far in the distance behind them, following them through the clear sky.

"Who's following us?" she said with alarm.

The ghost only frowned and, with a glance over his shoulder, said, "He's gaining on us."

The figure behind them, snarling with pointed teeth, lifted a hand in a way that was very familiar. He was going to shoot at them!

"Duck!" she squealed, just as a red blast flew from the figure's fingertips. Her stomach flew up into her throat when they suddenly dropped in a wild arc and then swirled around sideways to regain the height they had lost. It was like being on a roller coaster. A really fast and deadly roller coaster. Five more blasts were suddenly aimed their way and Phantom gasped, swooping and twirling in the air, trying to avoid them all.

"Ah!" her captor gasped in pain when a red blast singed the back of his shoulder, unnervingly close to Violet's head. The two of them were pushed forward from the blast, and Phantom almost stopped flying for a second before starting back up at a much slower speed, as the blast had taken away his momentum. The white clad figure was now dangerously close, his hands glowing a blood red.

It was only when things seemed very grim for the two of them that Violet suddenly decided to help. She struggled to gain leverage in the ghost's arms and brought her hands together over his shoulder. A wall of a shield formed behind them and with only a flick of her wrist, she pushed it back at an incredible speed. The figure behind them not only ran into a wall; it smashed into him, and his energy blasts died out in his hands as he dropped like a stone from the sky.

Phantom laughed, relief rolling in waves from his body and he doubled back to watch the figure fall.

"That was awesome!" he said, grinning widely at Violet. But Violet was not as pleased.

"Now take me down!" she commanded. "Or I'll make you."

The ghost rolled his eyes, but she felt the direction of the wind on her face change and knew that they were sinking lower.

When they reached the ground somewhere in a public park, she leapt from his arms. Her feet wobbled when they touched the ground, and her brain was pounding against her skull, but she managed to give him a good glare. But the look disappeared from her face when, without warning, she was suddenly encased by dull green dome.

"What?" she cried, running to the wall of the force field and pounding on it with two fists. "Are you serious? You can't do this!"

The ghost's green eyes fixed on her masked ones and he smiled triumphantly. "It's only a couple of questions."

Violet drew back, the irony of the situation almost literally killing her. She said nothing. Phantom crossed his arms, covering up the stretched DP insignia on his chest, and Violet swallowed a growing lump in her throat.

"How are you affiliated with Masters?" was the first question thrown her way. Violet frowned, crossed her own arms, and tossed her head haughtily, with no intention of responding.

She was spared by a small beeping jingle from the ghost's watch. Phantom's face fell, and for a beat, a look of realization flashed across his eyes. "Oh no," he said, looking down to check the time. He glanced back up at Violet and for a moment he looked utterly confused, but the look soon melted into a resolute frown.

"Ah—uh…," the public enemy faltered before the snap of a twig made him jolt to attention. He gasped when a deep throaty laugh reached both their ears.

A man clad in a suit, luxury dripping from him like glistening water from a fountain, approached them, a huge, charged weapon dangling loosely in one hand. He had flowing silver hair, a perfect Slavic olive complexion and cold, calculating eyes to match. Hoisting the heavy weapon into the crook of his arm and aiming it at the ghost, he announced, "The great Danny Phantom, finally caught." The whine of the gun startled the ghost, and he threw his hands up in immediate defeat, simultaneously dropping the shield around his captive.

Violet, on the other hand, almost swooned with relief when she recognized her employer's voice. "Mr. Masters!" She could not remove the grin from her face.

The man glanced at her. "Ah, you must be Miss Violet," he said. With a wry chuckle, he added, "What a pleasure it is to finally meet you, though I could have sworn that you said you had captured _him_, and not vise versa."

"The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Masters," Violet replied weakly, blushing.

"Ghost, I order you to remove yourself from the premises," the mayor said smoothly, his voice full of power. Phantom hesitated, his eyes darting between the man and the girl. The man's finger found its way to the trigger, prompting the ghost further. "You'd better leave now," Mr. Masters taunted. "Surely you can find _somewhere more important_ to be until I hunt you down again."

Violet did not understand why he stressed this part of the question, but Phantom definitely did. The ghost glanced at the watch on his still raised wrist. He glanced once angrily at Mr. Masters and then guiltily at Violet before leapt into the air. "This is far from over, Masters," he growled as he vanished, speeding into the sky.

Mr. Masters let the gun drop and he made his way over to Violet. Violet squirmed under his scrutiny, wondering just what kind of compensation, exactly—if any at all—she was going to receive for her troubles. Her gaze fell to her feet.

"I'm sorry—I must have kept you waiting," she said.

She was surprised when Mr. Masters chuckled. "Don't worry, my dear," he said, startling her with a strong clap on the shoulder. "I caught the whole thing. I saw that you had him captured in the beginning."

"Yes, sir," Violet said, looking up into his face, hope beginning to well in her chest.

"However, I would have been more than happy to give you your earnings," Mr. Masters continued, "had I not seen the unfortunate overpowering of your shield. But seeing as our public enemy still roams the city, I would feel much better if we could work out something else, hmm?"

Violet felt her heart drop dead into her feet. All the money, the education, her future—gone. Mr. Masters must have picked up on her feelings, however, because he gave her a comforting smile.

"Come, now," he said. "I'm not trying to swindle you out of your reward. If you would care to join me for some afternoon tea, I would love to discuss your payment in length."

--

She had joined him only because he had mentioned payment. Otherwise, she was so full of conflicting emotions that she would have loved to have just disappeared and left the man hanging.

In retrospect, she was surprised by how forgiving and generous the man was. She realized after she had time to cool off and collect her thoughts that his offer was actually a good compromise. If the man had been anyone else, she knew she wouldn't have received anything for her struggle. This man, Vlad Masters, had offered to pay for her long term employment. When he learned that she needed money for school, he immediately agreed to pay by semester. Ever semester she worked for him, he would pay the school. All she had to do in return was attend the state college, remain in the nearby area to protect the town, and attend scheduled bi-monthly meetings with him. She was also told something that surprised her: she had a coworker, the Red Huntress. She was not to know the Red Huntress' identity, and the Red Huntress, in return, was not to know hers.

Mr. Masters implored that she view the Red Huntress as an equal helping hand when they were keeping the city safe, but his statement of "I encourage you to view her not as competition" fell on deaf ears. Violet knew she would only see this girl as competition.

She was provided with anti-spectral weaponry and debriefed on the town in general. He gave her a key to an apartment he already owned near the college of her dreams.

It was hard to fight back tears of joy when he showed her the door and told her to "take care." This was everything she had been hoping for for the past two years: an education, a career, and a flat of her own. The only thing left to do was tell her parents the wonderful news.

* * *

**A/N:** Oh, no...whatever will happen to Violet? Where did Danny need to be so badly? I can tell you right now that I do not know. Ooh, sorry if I'm a little rusty. While I would love to say that I'm back... I can't. I miss you guys though. I just don't really like writing anymore. Especially this type of writing. I've done some growing and reflecting, and I believe that my life is much better without me spending a crapload of time on the computer. This chapter is in honor of the most unique review I've ever received. I mean, come on, I couldn't _not_ respond to it. I used this chapter both as a means to thank Starburista, and as a way to say thanks to all you guys for supporting me. Oh, god, am I getting emotional up in here?

**Note for Starburstia: **Starburstia, you're cool. Like really cool. I logged onto my email for the first time in months to see your review and I knew that if I didn't respond to your review, that would be super lame of me. I hope you don't mind that I took snippets out of your continuation and used them as inspiration for this chapter. I cringe at the fact that only several months ago I used words like "moolah," but otherwise, thanks so much for your review. Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)


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